Although the laughable is not usually thought of as a subclass of the beautiful (Aristotle, indeed, said that it was a subclass of the ugly), the problem of "humor" is a special case of the central problem of aesthetic theory. To find something laughable is to have a special kind of aesthetic emotion, but it is not at all easy to say just what features of the laughable situation evoke this emotion. Theories of humor attempt to answer this question.

Types of Humor

The only way to evaluate theories of humor is to see how well they apply to different types of jokes or humorous situations. For this we need a list of the main types of humor. The attempt to provide one may, however, prejudge the issue, since the basis of classification may itself presuppose a theory of humor. Moreover, if any one theory is right, then...