Laughter and pleasure

Abstract

Laughter and pleasure are generally presumed to be intimately connected with one another and one recent writer, John Morreall, advances the strong thesis that a pleasant psychological shift is a causally necessary condition for laughter. I counter Morreall's thesis with a panoply of examples. Morreall's response to some of these is found to be inadequate and confused. An alternative reading of his thesis is attempted and also found wanting, although in the end some interesting possibilities for a certain subdomain of laughter are hinted at. © 1994, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved.