Research On Bergson’s "Comicality" Ideas

Contect Bergson is the representative of philosophy of life in the West in the early twentieth century, who presented a fully vital philosophical concept - Stretching. Stretching means consciousness, life, self and other changing and developing processes existing within the time category. In this process, the latter state contains the pervious state, so the changes and developments are integral and continual. Based on the philosophical category, Bergson’s aesthetics thought also stressed the stretching and organic of life. He started from the philosophical category, "stretching", and analyzed comicality and laugh in detail and in depth. He holds that comicality is the performance of a living organism which loses elasticity and flexibility, and the performance of human life falling into a rigid and mechanical state from a true state. However, laugh is a powerful means of remedying the mechanical and rigid state of life.This thesis interprets Bergson’s comicality ideas from three parts:The first partstarts from Bergson’s philosophy of life, focuses on the time, memory, life impulse and other philosophical concepts, and especially does a thorough exposition for the category "stretching". He believes that the life impulse is the essence of the world, and life is an irrational, blind, and never-ending but tireless life impulse. This impulse reflected in the time are never interval and spontaneous circulation, which Bergson called "Stretching" or "Stream of Life". And because it seems a river of consciousness, which never stops, it is also called "stream of consciousness." Because the real essence of "stretching" lies in the stream, only through a means of inner experience - intuition, we can grasp the inner pulse of life.The second part describes Bergson’s "comicality "ideas." Comicality "theory is a negative aspect of the philosophy of life built by Bergson’s. Bergson thinks that the value of life lies in its tension and elasticity, and as the opposite to life,the matter is dull and rigid. Therefore, the essence of life is to overcome the material rigidity. If life can not beat the material rigidity, it will be at a standstill, or even backwards. Comicality is such a rigid and glassy state, and it violates the essence of life creation. If a person behaves the state of mechanical rigidity, well, it shows that life has lost creativity and flexibility, and it is the performance of life mechanization and materialization, and such kind of rigidity and clumsiness is just the root causing comicality. This part mainly analyzes the content of the "comicality "and means of creating" comicality" in order to construct the basic framework of Bergson’s" Comicality "theory.The third part mainly analyzes that laugh is a way to correct comicality and is a denial and punishment to the mechanization and materialization of life. Taking advantage of the fearful psychology caused by laugh to sanction people’s centrifugal behavior, so that the mechanical and rigid life can restore tension and flexibility. This part mainly describes the four psychological characteristics of laugh, that is to say laugh is a non-emotional behavior, laugh is a group behavior, laugh needs to have some adherents, and laugh expresses as a self-feel-good superiority. On the basis, it’s pointed that laugh plays a role in punishing comicality and making life return to stretching.