Jokes, aporia and undecidability

Abstract

Derrida saw laughter as a version of aporia; and he linked aporia to an undecidability that he ties to fiction. I argue that such undecidability contributes to some jokes. Sometimes this undecidability enables the joke to combine plausibility and delightfulness. More interesting and more aporetic is the way that undecidability contributes to jokes that foreground their textual status (some meta-jokes for instance) and those that have an effect of unfathomability. The jokes considered include one on which Derrida commented and another which was told at his Columbia University memorial service.

Affect philosophy meets incongruity: about transformative potentials in comic laughter

“…A similar positive regard for comic "undecidibility" is attributed to Derrida by Segal (2018) and related to aporia. Although the two philosophers should not be conflated, both Deleuze and Derrida are negotiating a course between meaning and non-meaning, proclaiming the value of adventurously riding differences rather than seeking and depending upon conclusive determinations.…”