Philosophy & Rhetoric Oct 2022

The Argumentative “Logic” of Humor

Fabrizio Macagno ; Michael Cundall

Abstract

ABSTRACT The logic of humor has been acknowledged as an essential dimension of every joke. However, what is the logic of jokes, exactly? The modern theories of humor maintain that jokes are characterized by their own logic, dubbed “pseudo,” “playful,” or “local,” which has been the object of frequent criticisms. This article intends to address the limitations of the current perspectives on the logic of jokes by proposing a rhetorical approach to humorous texts. Building on the traditional development of Aristotle’s almost neglected view of jokes as surprising enthymemes, the former are analyzed as rhetorical arguments. Like enthymemes, jokes are characterized by natural inferences that can be represented as topics, and quasi-formalized in argumentation theory as argumentation schemes. Like rhetorical arguments, jokes express a reason in support of different types of conclusions and proceed from distinct kinds of reasoning and semantic relations.

Journal
Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published
2022-10-01
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.55.3.0223
Open Access
Closed
Topics
rhetorical theory multimodality argument

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (3)

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    College English
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CrossRef global citation count: 6 View in citation network →

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