Redeeming Laughter, 2nd Edition

9 The Comic as Game of Intellect: Wit

As an argument is developed over a period of time, insights emerge, at first seem very clear, then show themselves to be in need of modification. This is especially the case here, when the argument concerns a phenomenon as elusive as that of the comic. Again and again one finds oneself on Bergson’s beach, so to speak, trying to hold in one’s hands a bundle of foam. But the exercise is not futile. Not everything escapes one’s grasp. Some kernels of insight remain reasonably solid. And, of course, there is intrinsic pleasure to the journey of exploration, quite apart from the results to be expected at the destination.

In an earlier part of this argument the point was made that there is an important cognitive ...