Phenomenological Approaches to the Involuntary Somatic World of Laughter (J. Butler and M. Merleau-Ponty)

Abstract

This paper aims to expand on J. Butler’s insights regarding the embodied and critical nature of laughter by drawing on conceptual tools from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of intercorporeality and touch. To this end, it focuses on the analysis of two specific modalities of laughter: contagion and, more particularly, tickling or gargalesis. The spatial specificity, the impossibility of self-induction, the unusual modality of touch, and the disruptive or crisis-like nature that characterize the latter can be understood through Merleau-Ponty’s descriptions of the body schema, haptic reversibility, and passive touch. Finally, the paper suggests possible points of dialogue between the phenomenological account of tickling developed here and certain scientific investigations on gargalesis.