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Letters
Letters
Beyond a Joke? • Paul Wasn’t a Control Freak • Who Cares Whether God Exists? • Nietzsche Rambles
Beyond a Joke?
SIR: I have just seen the small piece you published on jokes with sexual overtones that I told at a departmental Christmas party. (News, Philosophy Now Issue 26) The ‘less than eloquent’ case you said that I made in my defence was the pure contrivance of journalists – I refused comment, so they put words in my mouth. As most readers of your magazine will know, the question of what kinds of humour in what kinds of context are permissible is a complicated one. It is broached, briefly, in Chapter 6 of Ted Cohen’s recent book Jokes – Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters and I too have written on the subject. If you are not worried about your readers overdosing on humour (I note that Issue 25 has humour as its theme) I shall be happy to write a piece on the subject for Philosophy Now once my institution has completed its investigations of complaints that were made.
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