An open question: why aren't philosophers funny?

I just finished watching the film adaptation of Tom Stoppard's excellent play, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." The play (and film) follows the two minor characters from Shakespeare's "Hamlet." In the original, R. and G. are brought in by Claudius and Gertrude to plumb the depths of Hamlet's apparent madness. Hamlet, of course, was not mad at all, and when he reveals this with a play designed to "catch the conscience of a king," Claudius sends him to England along with R. and G. He gives R. and G. a letter for the the King of England, which says that, upon reading the letter, Hamlet is to be summarily executed. Hamlet discovers this, and substitutes a ringer for R. and G.'s letter. This new letter tells His Majesty to execute R. and G., instead.

That's Hamlet. In Stoppard's version, we find out what R. and G. are up to when they're not on stage in the original play. As it turns out, they're doing philosophy. Not only that, but they're funny. Stoppard's characters grapple with any number of fascinating questions. In one scene, Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman in the film) asks Guildenstern (played by Tim Roth), "What are you playing at?" G. responds "Words, words. They are all we have to go on." In one line, Stoppard sums up a good chunk of Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations." Stoppard's work is much more accessible than Wittgenstein, in addition to being more concise. As a bonus, it's funny - not this line, necessarily, but plenty of other parts of the play. Stoppard's version of R. and G. grapple with their own mortality. They seriously engage questions of personal identity. They talk about ethics. I was pleased to discover that they manage to simultaneously exult in wordplay while understanding that language is something of a cage on our thoughts.

So, on to the question posed in my subject line. Why is that philosophers cannot or do not duplicate Stoppard's work? This is, of course, very general. Wittgenstein, for all of his cryptic mumbling, is often funny; I'm told Kierkegaard can be a laugh riot. By and large, though, philosophers aren't particularly funny or accessible in their writing. What's even more remarkable is that many of my philosophical cohorts are perfectly capable of presenting accessible arguments in ordinary conversation. They are also capable of comedy. Moreover, contemporary philosophers tend to be deeply concerned about word use. I've found that this often manifests in a love of puns - the lowest form of comedy, perhaps, but comedy nonetheless. I find that grammar jokes (as my former professor put it) are both the best and the worst sort of comedy. Done well, grammar jokes are unparalleled; done poorly, they're a train wreck. The philosopher's concern about language also lends itself to a deep awareness of irony.

Comedy and accessibility aren't separate issues, either; comedy is an excellent way to make philosophical material more accessible. Likewise, open, free prose lends itself to comedy in a way that the turgid technical writing that is common to philosophy does not.

I suspect that there are several reasons for this apparent discrepancy between what philosophers can do and what they actually do. One possibility is that philosophers don't want to be accessible. I know that I suffer from a dark impulse to occlude my speech when I'm talking to people who lack my training. For example, I don't need to refer to the post hoc fallacy; I can describe it in English. Why would I want to talk about the argument from force when I can talk about the argumentum ad baculum? I try to avoid indulging this desire, but I have my failings. I suspect that this impulse exists in other philosophers as well, although it might be hidden. It's certainly natural; good philosophy is hard, and it takes a lot of training. We want to protect our investment, so to speak. This is understandable, and it's not without merit. You can't expect to do good philosophy without some training.

About a year ago, I starting thinking about martial arts. Bear with me; this is relevant. My sensei told me a story (a parable, if you will) about an exchange he had with one of his colleagues. My sensei (Dr. Rob Brady, former chair of the Stetson University philosophy department) asked his friend (Tai Ushida, a celebrity of sorts in Florida judo) what judoka were doing when they were at tournaments. Judo tournaments tend to be far less cutthroat than other sports events, so "competition" didn't seem to be the right word, since no one really cared about winning as an end in itself. Likewise, Dr. Brady's preferred word, "play," failed to capture the seriousness of the subject. Tai Ushida responded with one word - "training." Now, watch as I seamlessly segue back into the topic of philosophy.

Philosophy is also training of a sort (I think it's also play, but it's probably not an ordinary interpretation of the word). On the surface, philosophy, like martial arts, appears to be adverserial in nature. Certainly, philosophers argue with each other all the time. However, I suspect that skill in philosophy, like skill in martial arts, tends to elude those who persist in seeing the discipline that way. Philosophy is, I think, ultimately a cooperative enterprise - but that doesn't mean it's easy. We can't have just anyone walking in to our games; they've got rules, and most of them are there for a good reason.

I can recall one of my first philosophy classes, a course on the metaphysics of John Searle. On the first day, I hauled out the tired old chestnut, "How do you know that the blackboard is green?" Aside from the unfortunate idiom, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Hey, give me a break; I was a young and foolish undergrad. One of the professors - Dr. Brady, in fact - responded, "If you don't know, you should get your eyes checked." That sort of flippant dismissal struck me as odd at the time, but now it seems reasonable. Plenty of people have hashed out the problem of radical skepticism before, and no young Turk is likely to have a keen new insight on the subject. Skepticism is out of bounds, as it were, in most philosophical discussion. Even if we didn't have arguments that let us dismiss skepticism, we still would, I think, be within our rights to dismiss it as unproductive.

So, there are good reasons for philosophers to want to make their material somewhat inaccessible, in an effort to make people conform to the rules of the game. There is another issue at stake, as well; too often, attempts at "pop philosophy" miss part of the essential character of philosophical discourse. They might lack depth, or otherwise present a poor rendition of the real thing. Philosophy has its own lexicon, and this isn't a bad thing. However, I suspect that this often goes too far; just look at all of the labels that afflict, say, metaphysics - dualism, monism, materialism, scientism, skepticism (sometimes), epiphenomenalism, and so on and so forth. Some are warranted, some aren't, but the preponderance of labels can be a substantial barrier to entry for burgeoning philosophers. Likewise, the (good) desire to ensure that everyone knows the rules can be taken too far, resulting in unnecessary complexity.

Both of these impulses also interfere with comedy. As I said above, open prose can make comedy easier, and funny prose is often easier to read. There's also another barrier to comedy - serious philosophy is supposed to be, well, serious. I'm told that Wittgenstein once said that you could write a good philosophical text that consisted only of jokes. I think he was right. Moreover, humor is essentially human activity. Some (perhaps most) animals play. I'm told that some other primates laugh. Nonetheless, I don't know of any other animals that tell jokes. As Rabelais put it, "Pour ce que rire est le propre de l'homme (For laughter is the property of man)." If we, as philosophers, want to be relevant to ordinary life, we need to make jokes.

There's more to it than just that. This is just speculation, but I suspect that the fact that only humans make jokes is of some import. Philosophy is often an attempt to answer questions about the human condition which are not amenable to other sorts of inquiry. For example, only philosophy is capable of offering a systematic answer to the question, "What should I do?" - the quintessential question of ethics. The only other human endeavor that comes close is religion, and religion is typically not concerning with offering a systematic account of whatever topic is at hand (which isn't always a problem, but that's neither here nor there). One essential fact about the human condition is that we are frail creatures. I use the word "frail" in multiple senses here; we are physically vulnerable to any number of horrible afflictions. Moreover, we build much of our identity on assumptions about other people, which may or may not be well-founded. Our relationships can end at any moment - and that goes for all relationships, from the personal to the political. Comedy is perhaps the best way to deal with this uncomfortable fact. Gary Larson's Far Side (a philosopher's comic if there ever was one) traded in this for years. Here's a classic example:

EDIT: Image removed; it was the one where God is sitting at his computer, watching a man walk down the street, while his (God's) finger is poised over the "smite" button.

Much of our comedy is there to help us deal with our frailty. Philosophy often has the same aim, and there's no reason not to use the same means. Philosophers ought to be funny, I think, not only as part of being more accessible but also in order to gain some insight into the human condition.