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| Foreword | |
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| Preface | |
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| Acknowledgments | |
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| No Laughing Matter: The Traditional Rejection of Humor and Traditional Theories of Humor | |
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| Humor, Anarchy, and Aggression | |
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| The Superiority Theory: Humor as Anti-social | |
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| The Incongruity Theory: Humor as Irrational | |
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| The Relief Theory: Humor as a Pressure Valve | |
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| The Minority Opinion of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas: Humor as Playful Relaxation | |
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| The Relaxation Theory of Robert Latta | |
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| Fight or Flight - or Laughter: The Psychology of Humor | |
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| Humor and Disengagement | |
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| Humor as Play | |
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| Laughter as a Play Signal | |
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| From Lucy to "I Love Lucy": The Evolution of Humor | |
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| What Was First Funny? | |
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| The Basic Pattern in Humor: The Playful Enjoyment of a Cognitive Shift Is Expressed in Laughter | |
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| The Worth of Mirth | |
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| That Mona Lisa Smile: The Aesthetics of Humor | |
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| Humor as Aesthetic Experience | |
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| Humor and Other Ways of Enjoying Cognitive Shifts: The Funny, Tragic, Grotesque, Macabre, Horrible, Bizarre, and Fantastic | |
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| Tragedy vs. Comedy: Is Heavy Better than Light? | |
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| Enough with the Jokes: Spontaneous vs. Prepared Humor | |
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| Laughing at the Wrong Time: The Negative Ethics of Humor | |
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| Eight Traditional Moral Objections | |
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| The Shortcomings in the Contemporary Ethics of Humor | |
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| A More Comprehensive Approach: The Ethics of Disengagement | |
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| First Harmful Effect: Irresponsibility | |
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| Second Harmful Effect: Blocking Compassion | |
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| Third Harmful Effect: Promoting Prejudice | |
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| Having a Good Laugh: The Positive Ethics of Humor | |
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| Intellectual Virtues Fostered by Humor | |
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| Moral Virtues Fostered by Humor | |
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| Humor during the Holocaust | |
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| Homo Sapiens and Homo Ridens: Philosophy and Comedy | |
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| Was Socrates the First Stand-up Comedian? | |
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| Humor and the Existentialists | |
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| The Laughing Buddha | |
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| The Glass Is Half-Empty and Half-Full: Comic Wisdom | |
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| Notes | |
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| Bibliography | |
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| Index | |