{"id":2085,"date":"2026-01-31T21:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/editionsdupleix.com\/?post_type=product&p=2085"},"modified":"2026-01-31T21:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:11:10","slug":"henri-bergson-laughter","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/editionsdupleix.com\/en\/product\/henri-bergson-laughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Henri Bergson, Laughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why We Laugh\u2014and What It Does to Us<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Long before neuroscience tried to decode humor and long before satire became a political reflex, Henri Bergson<\/span><\/span> asked a deceptively simple question: What does laughter mean?<\/em>
The answer he proposed remains one of the most unsettling\u2014and illuminating\u2014accounts of comedy ever written.<\/p>\n

In Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic<\/em>, Bergson overturns the comforting idea that laughter is merely joy, release, or harmless play. He argues instead that laughter is a social signal, sharp-edged and purposeful, aimed at a specific human failure: rigidity. Whenever a living being behaves like a machine\u2014repeating gestures, clinging to fixed ideas, hiding behind professional routines\u2014laughter intervenes. It does not console. It corrects.<\/p>\n

What makes Bergson\u2019s approach so striking is its unity. A man slipping on the street, a caricatured face, a pompous official lost in procedure, a character trapped in a vice\u2014all obey the same logic. In each case, life momentarily stiffens into automatism. Comedy, Bergson shows, is society\u2019s way of restoring flexibility, of nudging the absent-minded dreamer or the ossified professional back toward alertness and adaptation.<\/p>\n

Equally provocative is Bergson\u2019s insistence that laughter requires distance. To laugh, we must suspend sympathy. We must think rather than feel. Laughter belongs not to solitary reflection but to groups\u2014to theaters, caf\u00e9s, institutions\u2014where it circulates as a collective gesture. It binds insiders together even as it exposes those who fall out of step. In this sense, laughter is neither innocent nor kind. It is efficient.<\/p>\n

Written with clarity, elegance, and a quiet audacity, Laughter<\/em> moves effortlessly from philosophy to everyday life, from farce to moral psychology. Bergson treats comedy not as a minor art but as a privileged window onto social intelligence itself. Few books explain so much about human behavior while asking us to reconsider something as familiar\u2014and as underestimated\u2014as a laugh.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A brilliant meditation on why laughter is society\u2019s sharpest instrument\u2014policing rigidity, exposing automatism, and reminding us how to remain alive.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2086,"template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[165,2246,45,1222,724,51],"product_tag":[114,2762,2763,2764,2765,2766,538,2767,2768,2769,2733,2770,2771,2772],"class_list":["post-2085","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-anthropologie","product_cat-esthetique","product_cat-philosophie","product_cat-prix-nobel","product_cat-psychanalyse","product_cat-psychologie","product_tag-aesthetics","product_tag-automatism","product_tag-bergson-humor-theory","product_tag-comic-character","product_tag-french-philosopher","product_tag-french-philosophy","product_tag-henri-bergson","product_tag-laughter-philosophy","product_tag-meaning-of-the-comic","product_tag-mechanical-rigidity","product_tag-nobel-prize","product_tag-nobel-prize-winner","product_tag-philosophy-of-comedy","product_tag-social-function-of-laughter","desktop-align-left","tablet-align-left","mobile-align-left","first","instock","downloadable","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"yoast_head":"\nHenri Bergson, Laughter - 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