10/02/2026
Today at 12:20!
Another Pizza Forum is coming up this Friday! On the first Friday of every month, a different faculty member gives a short talk on a philosophical topic, aimed at a non-specialist audience. This Friday (10/2) at 12:20pm in 501 War Memorial Hall, Dr. Claudio D'Amato will be giving a talk entitled "Punchlines and Premises: The Hidden Logic of Humor." Free pizza and soda will be provided. All are welcome!
Talk info: Why do we laugh at jokes that are, on closer inspection, logically ridiculous? Why, precisely because they are logically ridiculous! Sometimes a joke hinges on a fallacy that our brain is primed to recognize, so we laugh in triumph when we spot it. Sometimes we're filling in argumentative gaps by imagining suppressed premises or expecting a different conclusion, so when the actual conclusion is revealed (the punchline), we laugh in relief or surprise. And sometimes we don't laugh at an "objectively" funny joke because of social, ethical, or psychological barriers that stifle the humor response. So let's look at the structure of a few popular kinds of jokes (pun, misdirection, insult, double entendre, etc.) and analyze where the funny is, why it's funny, and whether it should be funny.
