Freud on Kant, Kierkegaard, and Plato

    Sigmund Freud’s analysis of humor builds on and attempts to reconcile many previous theories that we’ve read so far in class. Three major theories that he uses are the theories of incongruity, relief, and superiority.

    He begins with the Incongruity theory, agreeing that the deception of expectations leads to the feeling of humor. But then Freud asks why? Why should humor be derived from incongruity? What happens in the brain to cause that? He uses the example of a hangman who is unconcerned with his death. While that maintains “the denial of the claim of reality” (113), it is still not entertaining. This leads him into the relief theory.

    Freud corrects the failing of incongruity by stating that there needs to be a “triumph of the pleasure principle,” a “repudiation of the possibility of suffering” (113): in other words, Kierkegaard’s concept of relief. But Freud points out how that same concept is the core in many different psychoses, and asks why humor isn’t harmful, when it is originated in something detrimental.

    He answers this question by going all the way back to the superiority theory. But how one can be superior to the object of a self-detrimental joke? He explores this and concludes that humor is when the super-ego allows the ego (the pleasure principle) a bit of relief, and, in doing so, is able to look down on it like a father to a child. Through this, the mind is defended from insanity, yet pleasure can still be experienced. Thus, Freud combines all three theories into one.