YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!

Contents

“Better than getting hit on the head with a bushel of apples.” Isaac Newton

“Tremendous book but I bet no one will buy it.” Arthur Schopenhauer

“I’ll take that bet!” Blaise Pascal

“A wake-up call!” Immanuel Kant

“A complete triumph!” Kurt Godel

“It will make you smarter than you think.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

This edition first published 2009

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Capps, John M., 1970–

You’ve got to be kidding! : how jokes can help you think / John Capps and Donald Capps.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-9665-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4051-9664-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Critical thinking. 2. Wit and humor. I. Capps, Donald. II. Title. BC177.C3455 2009

160–dc22

2009007418

On the first day of school, the kindergarten teacher said, “If anyone has to go to the bathroom, hold up two fingers.” A little voice from the back of the room asked, “How will that help?”

Preface

This book came about through a happy confluence of seemingly unrelated events. One of us, a psychologist, was writing a book on humor, and stumbled onto Ted Cohen’s Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters (1999). He told the other, a philosopher, about the book, and this led both to begin thinking about collaborating on a book on humor. Our initial idea was to write a book in psychology, one that would combine humor, cognitive therapy, and philosophy. Then, however, the fact that the philosopher was teaching undergraduate courses in logic and critical thinking led us to think that a philosophy book would be more useful.

This idea was exciting to the psychologist because he thought it would be nice to contribute to a philosophy book. It was also daunting because, although he had been an undergraduate philosophy major, this was many years ago, and he had forgotten much of what he had learned in logic courses. Then, however, he discovered Jamie Whyte’s Crimes against Logic (2005). The back cover identified Whyte as a past lecturer of philosophy at Cambridge University and winner of a philosophy journal’s prize for the best article by a philosopher under thirty. The words “past” and “under thirty” suggested that the author and the psychologist-reader had certain life experiences in common. More importantly, the subtitle – Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders – suggested that the book would enable him to pick up where he had left off years ago. After reading it, he sent off a proposed set of chapter headings to the philosopher who responded with a carefully formulated table of contents. The project was now underway.

As we were writing the book, another book appeared on the philosophy shelves of local bookstores: Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes (Cathcart and Klein, 2007). The book cover indicated that the authors, Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, had majored in philosophy at Harvard and had then gone on to pursue other, quite unrelated careers. The book’s appearance caused the psychologist, who should have known better, several sleepless nights: “Cathcart and Klein got there first,” he moaned to the philosopher. The philosopher, however, remained calm and unperturbed and cited the following joke:

Thetrain conductor was going through the cars collecting tickets. He came to the seat where a woman was sitting with her son. “Ma’am,” he asked, “how old is your little boy?” “He’s four.” “He looks at least twelve to me.” “He worries a lot.”

He also pointed out that the Cathcart and Klein book has ten chapters, only one of which is devoted to logic, and this chapter considers only two of the twenty-three fallacies we were covering in our book. He concluded that, if anything, we should be elated that others have paved the way for our book on jokes and critical thinking. Thus mollified, the psychologist took his subsequent discovery of Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes by Jim Holt (2008) with remarkable serenity. What’s especially noteworthy here is that the philosopher countered the emotional reaction of the psychologist with an appeal to reason supported by compel-ling evidence.

As John Morreall’s The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor (1987) shows, philosophers have been interested in humor throughout the history of philosophy. Our book, however, has a special affinity with the investigative spirit of Henri Bergson’s Laughter (1912). Bergson sought answers to these questions: What does laughter mean? And what is the “basal element” in the laughable? He knew that gaining answers to these questions would be an uphill battle. After all, “The greatest thinkers, from Aristotle downward, have tackled this little problem, which has a knack of baffling every effort, of slipping away and escaping only to bob up again, a pert challenge flung at philosophic speculation” (p. 1). However, his excuse for attacking the problem anew was that he would not try to imprison the comic spirit within a definition, but instead treat it with the respect due any product of human imagination. By establishing “a practical, intimate acquaintance” with it, he would honor the fact that “the comic spirit has a logic of its own, even in its wildest eccentricities,” that it “has a method in its madness” (p. 2).

On the basis of this intimate acquaintance for nearly two hundred pages, Bergson concluded that the comic spirit has all the appearances of being logical, but it actually abandons logic (p. 196). Similarly, Ted Cohen writes about a type of joke that it displays “a crazy logic,” “an insane rationality,” “a logical rigor gone over the edge,” and involves “twisted reasoning” (p. 46). So, we think it makes a lot of sense for a philosopher and a psychologist to collaborate on a book about jokes and critical thinking. We agree that jokes often reflect the abandonment of logic and reason. We also believe, however, that some jokes make a lot of sense. The fact that some do and some don’t is precisely what makes them a valuable resource for critical thinking.

Acknowledgements

A couple of professors can put together what they would like to think is a publishable manuscript but it takes many other professionals, working together, to convert a manuscript into a book. The names of many of these persons are unknown to the authors. Of those whose names are known to us, we are especially grateful to Jeff Dean, philosophy editor at Wiley-Blackwell, who expressed interest in our manuscript and shepherded it through the review process. Also, in a moment of sheer inspiration, he came up with the book’s title and subtitle. Thoroughly impressed with his title, we have long since forgotten our own. Tiffany Mok attended to the various issues that kept the publication process moving along, and made certain that we were consulted on all aspects of the preparation of the book, including the cover design. Graeme Leonard did a splendid job in the actual editing of the manuscript. Among those whose names are unknown to us, we want to express our particular thanks to the reviewers of our original manuscript. We aren’t kidding when we say that we took their criticisms and suggestions very seriously. We and our readers are the beneficiaries of both.

Also, writing a book like this requires telling a lot of jokes and we’d like to thank the people, willing and unwilling, who listened and told us what was funny and what wasn’t. We found ourselves depending particularly on the good sense of humor, and also the good sense and good humor, of Evelyn Brister and Karen Capps, as we tested the jokes for this book. We are solely responsible for the bad jokes that remain!

Finally, we have noticed that in the case of some coauthored books one author will dedicate it to one person and the other author will dedicate it to another person. In our case, we both dedicate this book to Eamon Capps, our son and grandson. At three years of age, he has already shown his impeccable sense of humor by finding most of what we do hilarious. Of course, if this book is right, then he may also be showing his critical thinking skills by laughing at our own shortcomings. So it is with joy, and a little guilt, that we welcome him into this family of joke-lovers.

Good Point!

Humor today goes hand in hand with our rationality, and not just rationality in the sense of cognitive sophistication, but also in the sense of a rational attitude toward the world. Part of this attitude is viewing things critically, and people with a well-developed sense of humor naturally look at things critically, because they are looking for incongruity.

John Morreall

Bad Limerick!!

A candid Professor confesses

That the secret of half his success is

Not his science, as such,

Nor its marvels so much As his bright irresponsible guesses.

Thomas Thorneley