Reading Philosophy for Laughs
Why so serious? On philosophy, mood, and why seriousness is overrated.
This post is one of a seven-part series on how to read philosophy, published first on LookingforWisdom.com
When we moved the Looking for Wisdom HQ up to Scotland a year ago, we packed away all our philosophy books into boxes. There were lots of boxes. So on the outside, with a big fat marker pen, we wrote the words: “Philosophy Books (warning: extremely heavy).” As jokes go, it was a pretty feeble one. But it kept us entertained through the stresses of the move.
This idea that philosophy is inherently and necessarily heavy is one that has a broad currency. The first recourse for the unimaginative philosophy publisher, looking for something to stick on a book cover or a website, is Rodin’s Le Penseur. That furrowed brow! That muscular male torso? That dark, brooding glint of bronze! The heroism! The seriousness! The sheer heft and heaviness of it all!
And this, we are often encouraged to believe, is what philosophy is all about. But what if it isn’t? Or not, necessarily? What if seriousness is not always a virtue, or if there are other virtues that might be set alongside the virtue of seriousness-equally persuasive, and equally revealing?
