Witty Winds: Japanese Contributions to a Phenomenology of Laughter and Irony

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores philosophically the experiences of laughter and irony, focusing on Japanese sources but with a cross-cultural outlook. I ask whether globally unfavorable attitudes towards the comic in the European canon might have left unexplored or misunderstood several insights offered by the bodily and spiritual dimension revealed by laughter, and examine them through Japanese sources. Following a short but poignant triad of examples in Kuki Shūzō’s work, the paper analyses three instances of Japanese laughter and irony: the orgiastic laughter of the gods luring Amaterasu out of the Heavenly Cave in Kojiki; the anthropomorphic animal scrolls of Chōjūgiga, and the “Tiger Cubs Crossing” stone garden in Ryōanji, Kyoto, concluding how each one of them offers an important insight on the bodily and conceptual phenomenological cluster of laughter and irony. I conclude with a further exploration of laughter in Zen, a religious tradition with a unique stress on the spiritual potential of humor, following Nishitani’s reading of Mumonkan and his connection to the experience of “emptiness”.KEYWORDS: laughterhumorironyfūryūKukiNishitaniZen Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 For an overview, see Marinucci, “Japanese Atmospheres: Of Sky, Wind and Breathing”.2 Schmitz, Atmosphären, 7–12; for an explicit discussion of the affinity between Schmitz’s phenomenological work and Japanese cultural patters, Ogawa, Philosophy of Wind, 11–28.3 Kuki, “A Reflection on Poetic Spirit”, 96.4 Plessner, Laughing and Crying, 26.5 Ibid., 31–32.6 Ibid., 37.7 Schmitz, Atmosphären, 32–33.8 Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, 178.9 Solger, Erwin II, quoted in Garber, Romantic Irony, 71.10 Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments, 24.11 Ibid., 5-6.12 Marinucci “Japanese Atmospheres”.13 Marinucci, “Following the Footsteps of Wind”, 83.14 Kuki, “A Reflection on Poetic Spirit”, 104.15 Heldt, The Kojiki, 24.16 Schmitz, System der Philosophie III-4, 49–50.17 Akutagawa, Akutagawa Zenshū VIII, 195.18 Pinkola Estés, Women who run with the Wolves, 248–9.19 It is worth stressing how often humour and laughter gravitate around holes, either the mouth (laughter, food), or genitals and the anus (sexual humour, scatological humour). Even the word “humour” itself ultimately refers to the bodily fluids (humores) thought to control moods through their attunement to the external world. In order to understand the laughing or comical body, it is essential to include, or even centre our attention on its holes, not simply anatomically, but as the felt-bodily nexuses of our being into the world and with others.20 Plessner, Laughing and Crying, 85.21 Watsuji, Watsuji zenshū VIII, 35.22 Diog. Laer. VI-2 40.23 Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, 103.24 Kuki, “A Reflection on Poetic Spirit”, 104.25 Mitate 見立て is a visual pun by which an object is seen or represented as a stand-in for a very different one, creating a comic effect by effectively casting one image as two, often with an interplay between high and low meant to be parodic. It is a staple of Edo visual culture, and often associated with the the comic or erotic sense of fūryū; see Haft, Aesthetic Strategies, 2012.26 Kuki, “A Reflection on Poetic Sprit”, 104.27 Petersen, “Stone Garden”, 111.28 Figal, Aesthetics as Phenomenology, 161.29 Kimura, Karesansuiron no yukue, 64.30 Ōhashi, Kire no kōzō, 79.31 Marinucci, “Sabi and Irony”, 147–9.32 Blyth, Japanese Humour, 89.33 Blyth, Zen and Zen Classics, 76.34 Ibid., 76.35 Cleary, The Blue Cliff Record, 381.36 Ibid., 381.37 Yanagita, Teihon Yanagita Kunio shū IX, 201.38 Hobbes, The Elements of Law, 54.39 Nishitani, “The I-Thou Relation”, 77.40 Ibid., 82.41 Ibid., 87.Additional informationNotes on contributorsLorenzo MarinucciI am currently associate professor of Aesthetics at Tōhoku University, Sendai, Japan. After completing my PhD in University or Rome – Tor Vergata, with a work analysing the role of wind and atmosphere in Japanese aesthetics, I have been Canon Europe Fellow 2020 and Japan Foundation Fellow 2021 at Kyoto University, with a project exploring the relationship of scent and philosophy in Japan (a book project that should be out for Routledge in late 2023). My research topics include phenomenology, new phenomenology, Japanese modern philosophy and aesthetics. I am an active translator from Japanese, English and German, focusing on philosophy, non-fiction and poetry (especially haiku).