Laughter as a Subject and a Tool for Interdisciplinary Investigations in Philosophy and Neuroscience

Abstract

Laughter has been extensively studied by philosophers and neuroscientists, but the potential bridges between these two fields of inquiry have been underexplored. Here, we propose a convergent investigation of the philosophy of laughter and humor, leveraging recent theoretical and methodological advances in human functional neuroimaging. We develop testable hypotheses about the relationships between laughter, global embodied cognitive states, cognitive flexibility, and brain metastability. We argue that laughter, as an eminently embodied set of phenomena, should be better studied using emerging antilocalizationist approaches in neuroimaging, but in a way that integrates phenomenology and the classic findings of localizationist neuroscience. Finally, paralleling the interdisciplinary investigation of curiosity, we argue that laughter with humor is not only a topic but also a tool for advancing joint efforts in neuroscience and philosophy.