Philosophy Humor

Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City.

Written by an acknowledged master of comedy, this study reflects on the nature of humor and the functions it serves. Why do we laugh? What are we to make of the sheer variety of laughter, from braying and cackling to sniggering and chortling? Is humor subversive, or can it defuse dissent? Can we define wit?

Guns, germs, and steel might have transformed us from hunter-gatherers into modern man, but booze, sex, trash talk, and tripping built our civilization. Cracked editor Robert Evans brings his signature dogged research and lively insight to uncover the many and magnificent ways vice has influenced history, from the prostitute-turned-empress who scored a major victory for women's rights to the beer that helped create - and destroy - South America's first empire.

Can jokes win a hostile room, a hopeless argument, or even an election? You bet they can, according to Cicero, and he knew what he was talking about. One of Rome's greatest politicians, speakers, and lawyers, Cicero was also reputedly one of antiquity's funniest people. After he was elected commander-in-chief and head of state, his enemies even started calling him "the stand-up Consul". How to Tell a Joke provides a lively new translation of Cicero's essential writing on humor alongside that of the later Roman orator and educator Quintilian.

That Donald Trump is an asshole is a fact widely agreed upon - even by his supporters, who actually like that about him. But his startling political rise makes the question of just what sort of asshole he is, and how his assholedom may help to explain his success, one not just of philosophical interest but of almost existential urgency. Enter the philosopher Aaron James, author of the foundational text in the burgeoning field of Asshole Studies: the best-selling Assholes: A Theory.

Uns alle treibt die Suche nach dem Sinn des Lebens um. Dabei ist es leicht, sich im Labyrinth der Realitäten zu verlieren. Fest steht: Das Leben ist eine Reise. Und ein Reiseführer dringend nötig. Auf gewohnt humorvolle Weise stellt sich Dieter Nuhr unerschrocken den Hürden unserer Existenz und liefert alle relevanten Antworten auf die wichtigen Fragen des Lebens: Was ist hier los, wo geht es lang? Wo ist die Lösung? Und wer kennt das Problem?

Everyone's favorite houseguest who never left, Leon Black (played by award-winning comedian JB Smoove from HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm), drops his wisdom and good-bad advice for the masses. Learn the secrets Larry David has gleaned from the Falstaff of television. Be forewarned: in opening this audiobook and Leon's mind, you need to be prepared for straight talk. The kind of unfiltered blunt straight talk that pounds on your door, invites itself in, makes itself at home, and helps itself to your food, your security pass code, and your expensive organic beet juice.

The new book by the best-selling authors of Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar is a hilarious take on the philosophy, theology, and psychology of mortality and immortality. That is, Death. The authors pry open the coffin lid on this one, looking at the Big D and also its prequel, Life, and its sequel, the Hereafter.

Multiple award-winning speaker Ramakrishna Reddy presents the secrets, tools, and devices that helped him create 18 laughs and three applauses in a seven-minute persuasive speech in his fifth book Connect with Humor and Story. This is not theory. It's absolute content based on his research, his experience, and his testing.

An entertaining and insightful examination of the Emmy-award winning American satirical news show, broadcast on Comedy Central in the US, and (in an edited edition) on More4 in the UK and CNN International around the world.

Mitchell Pierce is a well-off New York ad executive whose marriage is falling apart. He no longer feels any passion for his pregnant wife, Tam, and even feels estranged from his toddler son, Jake. Mitchell is trapped in an unrewarding and loveless life, and though domestic violence isn't in his character, it is never very far away, either. Mitchell's life will irrevocably change one day, though, when a young man appears at his apartment door to pick up the family's black maid, Opal, for a date. Cooley it turns out is not a stranger to the household.

If, in this Age of Misinformation, you find yourself exhausted by the divisiveness, sickened by the dissent, poisoned by the discord, you are not alone. Of, by, and for the Hanged Man is a memoir equal parts hilarity and vulnerability, but just as important, it is a declaration for navigating our post-truth world. Author A.M. Pfeffer has chronicled this journey into an uproarious and riveting blueprint specific to discovering a "Hanged Man" inside each of us.

Dangerous Jokes develops a novel, well-researched, and compelling argument that lays bare the power of demeaning jokes in ordinary conversations. Claire Horisk draws on her expertise in philosophy of language and on evidence from sociology, law, and cognitive science to explain how the element of humor—so often used as a defense—makes jokes more potent than regular speech in communicating prejudice and reinforcing social hierarchies.

La inteligencia y la astucia nunca son aburridas. Hemos seleccionado para ustedes 500 citas de los autores más ingeniosos de la historia, desde Oscar Wilde a Groucho Marx, George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein con la ayuda de Woody Allen. Disfrute de estas perlas de humor para alegrar su día con una buena carcajada, descubra comentarios y chistes de valor incalculable con los que sorprender a sus amigos y enemigos, y déle la mano a las mentes más brillantes

A inteligência e a esperteza nunca são aborrecidas. Seleccionámos para si 500 citações dos autores mais espirituosos de sempre, de Oscar Wilde a Groucho Marx, George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein com a ajuda de Woody Allen. Desfrute destas pérolas de humor para alegrar o seu dia com uma boa gargalhada, descubra comentários e piadas inestimáveis para surpreender os seus amigos e inimigos, e aperte as mãos com as maiores mentes.

This book is about nothing. In mathematics there's only one way for nothing to exist, but there are an infinite number of ways for there to be something. So "something" is therefore more stable than "nothing". Which means that the more cluttered the universe is, the more stable it becomes. Does this mean that clutter is good? Brian Luff sets out to prove that it does.

Intelligens och skicklighet är aldrig tråkigt. Vi har valt 500 citat från de skickligaste författarna någonsin, från Oscar Wilde till Groucho Marx, George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein med hjälp av Woody Allen. Njut av dessa humorpärlor för att lysa upp din dag med ett gott skratt, upptäck ovärderliga kommentarer och skämt att överraska dina vänner och fiender med och skaka hand med de största sinnen. Dessa 500 citat är bland de roligaste och djupaste, från smarta kommentarer till otroligt eleganta ordlekar; låt dem inspirera dig, och kan du komma med många fler.

Ever tried reading Kant and felt your brain melt into a puddle of transcendental confusion? You're not alone! "Kant You Not" is the hilarious antidote to philosophical pretension that explains Immanuel Kant's revolutionary ideas without inducing narcolepsy. In this irreverent guide to history's most unnecessarily complicated philosopher, author Sophia Blackwell translates Kantian gibberish into actual human language while mercilessly mocking his impenetrable prose, bizarre personal habits, and occasionally absurd conclusions.

Dicen que, al mal tiempo, buena cara. He aquí un compendio de anécdotas ingeniosas e incluso divertidas en tiempos del tifus y la fiebre tifoidea.

Philosophie, Linguistik, Texttheorie, Literaturwissenschaft, Kommunikationswissenschaft, Medienkulturwissenschaft: Siegfried J. Schmidt hat alle diese Disziplinen universitär durch- und erlebt...