‘The first point to which attention should be called is that the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly human. A landscape may be beautiful, charming and sublime, or insignificant and ugly; it will never be laughable. You may laugh at an animal, but only because you have detected in it some human attitude or expression.’
Laughter is a collection of three essays by the French philosopher Henri Bergson dealing with his observations on laughter and its relationship with social behaviours. Bergson was one of the few philosophers who looked into the subject of laughter and he was by far the most detailed and serious in his analysis. Tackling the subject like a field zoologist, Bergson ultimately concludes from his observations that laughter cannot be separated from the human condition and the important social functions served.
Henri Bergson was a French philosopher who was influential in the tradition of continental philosophy during the early 20th century. Bergson was known for his arguments regarding the importance of intuition and immediate experience over abstract rationalism. He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature and is best known for his book Creative Evolution.