The Relationship Between Logic and Humor
Julia Nefsky writes about this in Issue 51 of Philosophy Now, offering quite a few examples including:
For example, in the Mel Brooks movie Young Frankenstein Dr Frankenstein arrives at his family’s castle in Transylvania and, as he is lifting his assistant Inga out of their carriage, notices big elaborate knockers on the door. He exclaims: “What knockers!” Inga, thinking he is complementing her, replies “Oh, thank you Doctor” with an excited smile.
Clearly, there is equivocation here with the word ‘knockers’, and it is the equivocation that is the essence of the joke. This becomes apparent when one considers what happens if you take it away. The only way to remove the equivocation would be to disambiguate between the two meanings, so I suppose Dr Frankenstein would have to say “What door knockers!” or “Look at the knockers on that door!”, but then the joke would be completely ruined. Now although the essence is the equivocation, there are other aspects that enhance the humour, like Inga’s flirtatious character.
A person doesn’t need to understand logic or the nature of equivocation fallacies in order to “get” the humor of jokes like the above, but would it help? Well, some understanding is obviously necessary because if you don’t realize that the same word is being used with different meanings, you won’t understand that there is a joke there at all. Sometimes, though, people think that a more technical and detailed understanding of something can reduce a person’s appreciation of it — for example, knowing how rainbows are formed leads a person to not being able to appreciate them as much.
That, however, is very mistaken. A person with understanding might not experience an emotional reaction to a “mystery” about something, but at the same time they gain a much greater appreciation for how it works. A person with a greater understanding of logic might be able to appreciate more subtlety in jokes than someone who doesn’t comprehend what is going on.
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Comments
If logic plays a part in humor, let us not forget that opposite is also true. An important method of proof in logic is the reductio ad adsurdum. Thus a good sense of humor can be key to a good sense of logic. To be humorless is to be devoid of an appreciation of the absurd and thus prone to belief that is unsound, even if technically valid.