SAE Laughter · IV: The Laughter of Despair and the Knowing Smile
SAE 笑论·四：绝望之笑与会心之笑
15DD is non dubito: it is not only I who am an end; the other, too, is an end in itself. This acknowledgment is unidirectional: it is one subject's not doubting that the other is an end in itself (Methodological Overview, §1.7). Psychoanalysis IV develops this layer as Cert: doubts are present, remainders are present, the construct's gaps are present, yet I do not doubt. This paper discusses the two kinds of laughter at this layer. The other of the knowing smile (会心之笑) falls directly under this definition; the other of the laughter of despair is the future self, which falls here under this series' extended reading.
The laughter of despair is this: when the subject is convinced that at this moment no choice whatever remains, he discovers, unexpectedly, that he is still searching after all. It has little to do with whether there really is a way out. The construct laughed at is the subject's grasp that "there is nothing left", a grasp that claims to have no remainder; laughter sees that it still has such a remainder: the self that is still searching. In the same impasse there can also be self-mockery, laughter at a futile self. The laughter of despair as this paper uses the term is a narrow class, defined by four conditions: the seeker is seen as one's own direction; this direction is not held up by gritting one's teeth, with "unexpectedness" as its marker; it is open to the future self; and this direction does not require others to submit to it. Under this definition it is at 15DD. Exclusivity cannot be derived from within a laugh, and so it is written into the definition; what can be tested is whether a standing at 13DD or 14DD can see the seeker in this way. The paper then draws boundaries against Descartes' cogito, Freud's gallows humour, Schopenhauer's humour and Plessner's laughing and weeping, and sets it against the mirthless laugh in Beckett's Watt; the word "mirthless" is left to Beckett's own sense.
The knowing smile is this: having understood what another has been saying all along, I finally arrive at the place he had spoken of long before, in words I had heard but not understood, and I let that place remain his: he walked there himself, and I neither co-opt it nor put it to use. Not doubting that every subject who reaches this point, whether earlier or later, would see it this way is how this shows itself in a laugh. It is unidirectional and needs no one to turn back and confirm me; what it judges is not a gain of my own, and this is what separates it from the laughter of triumph at 14DD. On this paper's reading, the smile at the raised flower (拈花微笑) is a positive instance of it (the original records only that Mahākāśyapa broke into a smile). Finally, the paper separates laughing at the same thing, tacit understanding, and looking at each other and laughing. Laughing at the same thing is two subjects each laughing on their own; tacit understanding adds common knowledge; looking at each other and laughing is mutual non dubito, in which each takes the other as an end, and belongs to 16DD. I do not doubt that you will laugh, and you do not doubt that I will: that is how it shows itself in laughter, because laughter is something felt within and can only be not doubted. Laughs at several different layers can be distinguished within one burst of laughter; the paper tries this out on the laugh at the end of The Killing Joke. The Laughter Series registers looking at each other and laughing only; it does not develop it.
Keywords: 15DD, Cert, non dubito, the laughter of despair, self-mockery, the future self, the knowing smile, the raised flower, looking at each other and laughing, mutual non dubito, Descartes, Beckett, Schopenhauer
1. 15DD: Non Dubito
1.1 The Definition of Non Dubito
SAE Methodological Overview, §1.7, defines 15DD as non dubito: "Not only I am an end." It acknowledges that the other, too, is an end in itself; but 15DD is a unidirectional acknowledgment: I acknowledge you, but you have not chiseled me back. The V3.1 revision note to that paper gives this layer the single name of non dubito and states that 15DD is one subject's not doubting that the other is an end in itself: a cut that this subject itself makes, not a norm holding horizontally between subjects. This series takes this as the definition of 15DD.
SAE Psychoanalysis (IV) develops this layer in terms of psychic structure and calls it Cert (self-with-non-dubito), written as two components: non dubito about one's own purpose, plus the unidirectional confirmation of others as independent ends. Non dubito is not firm belief; a firm belief may be a delusion. As Psychoanalysis IV puts it in §2.2, non dubito does not eliminate lack; it is not "I have no doubts", but rather: doubts are present, remainders are present, the construct's gaps are present, yet I do not doubt. Impossible to complete, yet possible to be certain.
Psychoanalysis IV also explains why the two components cannot be separated: the remainder of 14DD is that the other, too, is an end; a "non dubito" that can be maintained only by denying the other's independence is not non dubito but forced construct-closure. Confirming the other as an independent end is the structural test condition of non dubito. By the definition in the Methodological Overview, this component is precisely what makes 15DD what it is. The other of the knowing smile (会心之笑) is another person, and falls directly here; the other of the laughter of despair is the future self, and falls here under this series' extended reading (3.1).
1.2 The Four Minimum Criteria of Non Dubito
Psychoanalysis IV, §2.2, gives four minimum criteria for distinguishing non dubito from delusional conviction, stubborn fixation and colonized mission-zeal. Since the discussion below compares against them one by one, they are summarized here:
- It survives repeated remainder-impacts without withdrawing, but sustains itself by acknowledging the remainder, not by blocking feedback, refusing questions or cutting off dissent.
- It allows the other's direction not to serve my direction.
- It preserves ordinary uncertainty monitoring: certain about the direction, uncertain about specific outcomes.
- It does not withdraw before costs, but not through self-coercion: the costs are there, yet no extra effort is needed to "persevere", because direction and self are one.
1.3 Cert toward the Other
Psychoanalysis IV, §2.3, distinguishes three postures toward the other: "I understand you" is the empathy of 13DD; "I do things for you" is the investment of 14DD; only "I confirm you are an independent end" is 15DD. This confirmation is unidirectional: I confirm you, but you need not confirm me. Bilateral confirmation belongs to 16DD; Psychoanalysis IV, §2.4, notes that the structural change that occurs in the individual at 16DD has not yet been sufficiently clarified within the overall SAE framework.
1.4 Laughter at This Layer
The Overview holds that the layer of a laugh is fixed by the layer at which the laugher stands at that moment. A 15DD laugh is a judgment made by a laugher who stands in non dubito. This paper discusses two kinds:
- The laughter of despair: the construct laughed at is the 13DD subject's grasp of his situation at this moment, "there is nothing left"; the one who judges is at 15DD; the other is the future self.
- The knowing smile: the construct laughed at is my old grasp of something another person said long ago, words I had once heard but not understood; the one who judges is at 15DD; it is occasioned by looking back to a speaker, it lets that place remain his, and it does not doubt that every subject who reaches this point would see it this way.
In neither does my purpose enter the construct laughed at; this is what sets them apart from the laughter of 14DD. Within one burst of laughter they may be accompanied by laughs at other layers, each recorded at its own layer (Overview, 5.4; Section 7 of this paper).
2. The Laughter of Despair
2.1 Structure: The Limiting Case of the Formula
The laughter of despair is this: when the subject is convinced that at this moment no choice whatever remains, he discovers, unexpectedly, that he is still searching after all.
It has little to do with whether there really is a way out. The construct laughed at is the subject's present grasp of his own situation: "there is nothing left". What this grasp says is precisely "there is no remainder here": it takes the list of ways out for the whole of the situation. What laughter sees is that it still has such a remainder: the self that is still searching, the one who is still thinking, still trying, still looking.
Three things must be kept apart here: the set of ways out; the grasp of the situation; the seeker. "No choice whatever", taken as a judgment about ways out, may at this moment be right or wrong; its validity is judged separately (Overview, 2.3). What laughter sees is not a way out but the seeker, whom that grasp failed to take in. "Still" attaches to the construct, here in the senses of presence and being in use: at this moment he is still convinced that there is nothing left; the grasp is still before him, and he still views his situation by it. The construct is not overturned by this laugh, nor is the seeker erased; no one loses.
This is why the laughter of despair is the limiting case of the formula. That every construct has a remainder is, elsewhere, a general proposition; here it is seen on the spot, on a grasp that claims to have taken in everything.
The laughter of despair is not finding a way out. It is common enough, after the laugh, suddenly to find that there is a way after all; but that comes after the laugh, and does not reach back to change the fact that that laugh was the laughter of despair.
2.2 Why "Unexpected Discovery"
"Unexpected" is not a figure of speech. On the Overview's seeing grid, this is a laugh of suddenness within one person: the I of a moment ago, standing inside "there is nothing left", did not see that it was still searching; now it sees. The gap closes in an instant.
If it were not a discovery but a decision, "I will keep on searching", that would be will, not laughter. "Unexpected" carries a further weight here. If the searching were held up by gritted teeth and willpower, one would have known all along that one was searching, and there could be no question of "still searching, after all". That the searching is discovered rather than decided suggests that it is not held up by will: the direction is moving on its own, with no one pushing it. This paper therefore takes "unexpected discovery" as the marker that this direction is not held up by gritting one's teeth; what it addresses is the original object of non dubito criterion 4 (Psychoanalysis IV, §2.2), namely how the direction is maintained. It is only a marker: whether the direction really does not rest on coercion must still be checked separately by the two questions in the last paragraph of this section, and is not certified by the sense of unexpectedness itself.
Attention can be mixed (Overview, 5.4): at the same moment one share may be gritting its teeth while another share looks. If someone sees only afterwards that his searching through those days had been held up by gritted teeth all along, then, in the original sense of non dubito criterion 4, this direction was maintained by self-coercion; even if he laughed at that moment, it was not the laughter of despair as this paper uses the term, and it is recorded separately according to the laugher's standing at that moment. If, in such a case, the person reports that at that moment there was a jolt directed at "the seeker is my direction", the laugh is not thereby renamed the laughter of despair; but it is exactly the kind of case the falsification condition in 2.3 asks about.
Gritting one's teeth needs a marker of its own; it cannot be inferred backwards from whether there was a jolt. Two things can be asked. First: was the searching discovered, or was it watched over and pushed by will all along? Second: at that moment, did the share of attention resting on the seeker need extra effort to hold it up? The first question addresses how the direction is maintained, and is to be answered from what the person said and did beforehand, not from whether there was "unexpectedness" at this moment; the second serves only as corroboration, for one can look without effort at something that is itself held up by gritted teeth. Both questions are asked separately from whether there was a jolt of cannot-not.
2.3 Why at 15DD: The Definition and the Testable Part
The laughter of despair as this paper uses the term is a narrow class marked out by definition. First, what it sees must be made clear.
In the same impasse, a person at 13DD can also laugh at himself: "Look at me: I know there's no way out, and I'm still searching." The construct of this laugh is "I know there is no way out" and its remainder is "still searching", the same structure as the laughter of despair. It is the self-mockery of 13DD. The difference between the two lies not in the construct but in what the seeker is seen as. The seeker that self-mockery sees is a ridiculous, futile self; the seeker that the laughter of despair sees is one's own direction, not held up by gritted teeth, open to the future self as well, and not requiring it to make good on today. The laughter of despair as this paper uses the term means the latter. The former can occur all the same and is recorded according to the laugher's standing at that moment; the two can also accompany each other within one burst of laughter (Section 7). They share a structure and a remainder, yet differ in layer, because what activates a layer is what is faced at that moment, not the construct laughed at (Overview, 6.1): self-mockery faces a futile self; the laughter of despair faces the seeker as a direction.
This paper defines the laughter of despair by four conditions:
- the seeker is seen as one's own direction;
- this direction is not held up by gritting one's teeth, with "unexpected discovery" as its marker, a marker that must be checked separately (2.2);
- it is open to the future self and does not require it to make good on today's direction (Section 3);
- this direction does not require others to submit to it.
All four are features of non dubito (Psychoanalysis IV, §1.2, §2.2); so, under this definition, the laughter of despair is at 15DD. In what follows, "definitional condition n" refers to the four conditions here; "non dubito criterion n" or "§2.2 criterion n" refers to the four minimum criteria of Psychoanalysis IV.
Here it must be said plainly: exclusivity is carried by this definition, not derived from within a laugh. Imagine a person whose direction itself must be sustained by others' submission. He, too, in an impasse, may discover unexpectedly that he is still searching, see the searching as his own direction, not grit his teeth, and be open to his future self. Judged by that moment alone, what he has is indistinguishable from the laughter of despair. Psychoanalysis IV, §1.2, says that a "non dubito" that must be maintained by denying the other's independence is not non dubito but forced construct-closure. Definitional condition 4 is what keeps such a case out, and it does so on the same object: the fault lies in the very direction he takes as his own, not in his standing lower toward some other object; so "Cert too is object-specific" (Psychoanalysis IV, §3.1) cannot dissolve it. This exclusion can rest only on the definition, not on how that moment looks.
What can be tested is whether other standings can see the seeker this way. The following table (the bridge table) is a claim of this series; each row concerns only the share of attention that rests on the seeker:
| Layer | On seeing "still searching" | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| 13DD | Can see itself reflexively but has no direction of its own, so there is no question of seeing the seeker as its own direction; what it sees is mostly a trapped, futile self: either self-mockery, or sinking into "the more you observe, the more anxious you become" | Psychoanalysis (II): 13DD as the self without a purpose; "the swamp of self-awareness" |
| 14DD | The self is grasped through purpose. Once the subject is convinced there is no way, purpose can hardly operate; to keep the direction, it will mostly have to be held up by will, and then it fails definitional condition 2 (that is, non dubito criterion 4). A 14DD purpose can be very firm, too (Psychoanalysis IV, §1.2: "no matter how steadfast"), but firmness is not the same as not relying on self-coercion. Wry laughter is possible because purpose is still operating (Paper III, 4.3). The testable claim of this row is: searching held up by will, when seen, has no jolt directed at "the seeker is my direction"; a direction kept without will that also meets the other three conditions is, by definition, already at 15DD and does not count as a counterexample to this row | Inferred by this series from Psychoanalysis (IV), §2.2 criterion 4 |
| 15DD | Non dubito keeps its direction without extra effort, while allowing the future self to change course or stop, and without requiring others to submit | Psychoanalysis (IV), §1.2; §2.2, criteria 1, 2 and 4 |
Only a laugh that is really laughed within counts; outward laughter does not, for instance laughter breaking out uncontrollably in terror. The Overview's inner–outer grid has already excluded the cell "does not laugh inwardly, laughs outwardly".
A corollary follows: when the four conditions are not met, the laughter of despair as this paper uses the term does not occur, and there is no question of its "dropping to some layer". If there is some other laugh in the same situation, it is another laugh, recorded according to its own standing.
The falsification condition is written against the table above and is confined to the same object and the same share of attention; in both branches, the antecedent must be judged from words and deeds outside this laugh, not inferred backwards from whether this laugh occurred. The 14DD row: if there is a case in which earlier words and deeds show that the searching had been watched over and pushed by will all along (the first question in 2.2), and yet the person reports that at that moment there was a jolt of cannot-not directed at "the seeker is my direction", then both the claim in 2.2 that searching held up by gritted teeth leaves no room for "still searching, after all" and the 14DD row of the table above must be narrowed; whether the share of attention resting on the seeker took effort serves only as corroboration, not as an antecedent. The 13DD row: if there is a case in which neither before nor after can any line of "what I should become" be discerned, and the person cannot say what the searching is for, yet at that moment he can genuinely see the seeker as his own direction, then the 13DD row must be narrowed. If "having no direction of one's own" can only be fixed by the standing of that moment, this branch is merely definitional and does not count as part of what can be tested.
There is also a pressure case: someone notices that he is still searching, and has not forced himself to notice it, yet demands that his future self must complete today's direction. Under this paper's definition he has made a demand on the future self; he fails definitional condition 3 and cannot laugh the laughter of despair as this paper uses the term. If he still laughs, the laugh is checked separately by its standing: what he laughs at may be the old grasp, the new plan, or the junction of the two; it may be self-mockery, seeing a self that is bound never to make good; and if purpose really has begun to operate again, it may be something like wry laughter (Paper III, 4.3).
2.4 One Situation: Laughing or Weeping
Section 3 of the Overview says that weeping focuses on the construct and laughter on the remainder. Despair is a situation in which this distinction is especially sharp: when attention lands on "there is nothing left", one weeps; when it lands on "still searching, after all", one laughs. The situation has not changed, only where attention lands; so the two often alternate, and can also accompany each other, one share weeping and one share laughing (Overview, 5.4). The laughter of despair does not deny that bout of weeping.
2.5 Layer: The Construct Laughed At Is at 13DD, the One Who Judges at 15DD
What is laughed at is the 13DD subject's grasp of his situation, yet the one who judges stands at 15DD. Counted by the layer of the construct laughed at, it would fall back to 13DD, which does not fit its structure; this is exactly the reason for the Overview's principle that a laugh goes with the one who laughs. The laughter of despair does not revoke subjecthood: the 13DD subject is still there, still convinced that there is no way forward; what changes is the position from which one looks, from being trapped in that conviction to seeing the one who is trapped in it and still searching.
Nor does it guarantee anything. After the laughter of despair, a person may save himself, may suddenly find that there is a way after all, may make peace with the situation, or nothing at all may happen; all of these come after the laugh and are not the content of the laugh itself.
2.6 An Example: Jin Shengtan at His Execution (This Paper's Reading)
Reportedly, as Jin Shengtan faced execution, he was still telling people that two particular ordinary foods, chewed together, have a flavour all their own. The story exists in many versions, which differ on which two foods he named; this paper takes only its structure. At the execution ground there was no choice; yet he was still tasting, still discovering, still telling others what he had discovered, which is to say still searching. If what his laugh saw at this moment was precisely the self still savouring the world, and if the four conditions of 2.3 are met, that is the laughter of despair as this paper uses the term: the cost is his life, and the remainder is the self still searching. In this example there really was no way out; but that is a feature of the example, not a condition of the laughter of despair (2.1).
This example is an illustration, not a proof. A legend cannot supply the standing that 2.3 requires; what a reader can draw from it is only the structure; a witticism at the execution ground does not by itself certify 15DD. Because the cost in this example is extreme, it can illustrate the Overview's remark in 3.3: cost divides kinds of laughter; it does not mark the boundary of laughter.
3. The Other Is the Future Self: The Four Criteria of Non Dubito
3.1 Where Is the Other?
The definition of 15DD itself contains an other: one does not doubt that the other is an end, and does so unidirectionally. When the laughter of despair occurs there is often no one else around; who, then, is its other?
This series answers: the future self. This is this series' extended reading. The other of Methodological Overview, §1.7, has "I acknowledge you" as its example, and means another person; this series extends it to the future self, and notes the extension here. The other of the knowing smile is another person and falls directly under the definition; the other of the laughter of despair falls here by this extension.
What is seen at this moment is that I am still searching; this act of looking is the present I opening itself to the future self. The future self may carry on along today's searching, or may change course, or may stop; it need not prove itself by making good on today's direction. I do not decide for it, nor do I require it to line up with the I of today.
Here the tense must be kept. What is seen at this moment is only "I am still searching", which is in the present tense; the confirmation of the future self is an opening toward it, not a prescription for it. Expectation and demand must be kept apart. "I believe my future self will certainly find it" is an estimate of the outcome, and an overconfident one; that is checked separately. Only if one goes further and demands that the future self must make good on that outcome is it a prescription imposed on another, and then the second criterion in the table of 3.2 below cannot be passed.
3.2 Criterion by Criterion
Reading the future self as an other is this series' reading of the second criterion of Psychoanalysis IV: the other of which Psychoanalysis IV speaks is another person; this series extends it to the future self. Here the four criteria are matched one by one according to each criterion's original object: what is asked is how the direction is maintained, how the other's direction is treated, and how outcomes are monitored, not whether attention at that moment took effort.
| Minimum criteria of non dubito (Psychoanalysis IV, §2.2) | The laughter of despair |
|---|---|
| 1. Survives repeated remainder-impacts without withdrawing; sustained by acknowledging the remainder, not by blocking feedback | The remainder-impact is the conviction "there is nothing left" itself: the subject accepts that there is nothing, does not pretend there is a way out, and does not shut this conviction out; yet the direction has not been withdrawn. "Still searching" is only a clue and does not by itself establish this criterion: what is required is that the direction stands by acknowledging this conviction, not by refusing to look at it. Without the conviction that there is nothing left, this construct is not present, and there is no such laugh |
| 2. Allows the other's direction not to serve my direction | Toward other people: this direction does not require others to submit to it (definitional condition 4). Toward the future self: whether it changes course or stops, it need not make good on today's direction (this series' extended reading; definitional condition 3) |
| 3. Certain about the direction; ordinary uncertainty monitoring of specific outcomes | Certain about the direction: the searching is one's own direction. Uncertain about outcomes: he is convinced that "there is nothing left", yet has not stopped looking, thinking, trying, and does not say "I will certainly find it". "Still looking" is only a clue; what is required is that a fallible estimate of the outcome is still kept |
| 4. Does not withdraw before costs, but not through self-coercion | The direction of searching itself is not held up by gritting one's teeth, with "unexpected discovery" as its marker, a marker that must be checked separately (2.2); that the share of attention resting on the seeker takes no effort serves only as corroboration |
3.3 The Weight of This Reading
This comparison does two things. First, it shows why the laughter of despair as this paper defines it is at 15DD: all four criteria are matched according to their original objects, and the definition itself is the shape of non dubito (2.3). Second, it shows what the non-occurrence of the laughter of despair looks like: a demand is made on others or on the future self (non dubito criterion 2); one is not in fact convinced that there is nothing left, so the construct is not present (the antecedent of the construct laughed at in this paper); the monitoring of outcomes is shut down (non dubito criterion 3); or the searching is forcibly held up by will (non dubito criterion 4). In these cases the laughter of despair as this paper uses the term does not occur; any other laugh in the same situation is recorded separately.
One more point must be noted: Psychoanalysis IV discusses neither laughter nor the future self. This section only borrows its four criteria to test a claim of this series, and does not extend Psychoanalysis IV in any way on its behalf.
4. Drawing Boundaries
4.1 Descartes' Cogito
The laughter of despair shares a similar structure of discovery with Descartes' cogito: Descartes, doubting everything, discovered the self that was doing the doubting; the laughter of despair, convinced that no choice remains, discovers the self that is doing the searching. In both, from inside a situation that seemed sealed shut, something within that situation is seen to be still operating.
The divergence must be stated precisely. In Descartes, doubt runs until it reaches the point that I am, for as long as I am thinking; having made sure of this, he does not stop, but goes on to ask what I am, and rebuilds knowledge on this certain point as its ground. So the boundary does not lie in "no further questioning once certainty is reached", but in use: Descartes uses this certain point as the foundation for reconstruction and derives a thinking thing; the laughter of despair founds nothing on this laugh, derives no substance and rebuilds nothing; it only sees that the searching is still there. The searching is itself a construct and has its remainders too; the future self may change course or stop. Impossible to complete, yet possible to be certain.
4.2 Freud's Gallows Humour
Paper III has already discussed the example from Freud's "Humour": a criminal being led to the gallows on a Monday remarks that the week is getting off to a good start. Freud's explanation is that the superego comforts the frightened ego as an adult comforts a child, viewing the world as a child's game, so that the danger is made small and the claims of reality are repudiated. On this point the original is explicit that the consolation is genuine, and this paper does not soften it on his behalf.
The laughter of despair differs from it in two respects. First, the laughter of despair does not shrink the situation: the subject is still convinced, at this moment, that there is nothing left, and that grasp is still before him. Second, the structure differs: the superego comforts the present ego from above; in the laughter of despair there is no party looking down, only the present I opening itself to the future self. Whether the two descriptions can apply to one and the same laugh, this paper does not decide. The original writes of that kindly superego in a hypothetical mood; how it maps onto the SAE layers is registered as undecided in Section 6 of Paper III, and gallows humour itself is held open between 14DD and 15DD.
4.3 Schopenhauer's Humour
In Volume II, Chapter 8, Schopenhauer sets humour against irony: irony is jest hidden behind seriousness, humour is seriousness hidden behind jest. Humour, he says, springs from a subjective, earnest and lofty mood that comes, against its will, into conflict with a commonplace external world, a world it cannot escape and will not yield to.
This description comes close to the laughter of despair, so it must be made clear where this paper's description lies. Schopenhauer's humour describes a lasting conflict between a mood and the world; the laughter of despair describes a suddenness: on a construct that claims to have no remainder, the seeker is seen. For Schopenhauer, humour still has the incongruity of concept and reality at its core; in this series, the remainder in the laughter of despair is a self that is still operating. The two can alternate in the same person, and may also be two descriptions of the same laugh; this paper does not judge them mutually exclusive on the strength of a difference in wording.
4.4 Plessner on Laughing and Weeping
As this paper has it from memory and secondhand accounts (the original to be verified), Plessner in Laughing and Crying (1941) regards laughing and weeping as responses in which the body takes over, in boundary situations where a person can no longer respond by action or by speech. He shares one observation with this series: laughing and weeping occur in the same kind of boundary situation. Some readings hold that, for him, the loss of bodily control is itself one way in which a person answers. If so, "judgment" and "the body taking over" cannot be opposed so sharply.
This paper turns this point into a question about one and the same case, to be verified: which capacity for response is it that the body takes over? Does it exclude judgment in this paper's sense? The claim on this paper's side is that inner laughter is the jolt of cannot-not, felt, directed at this remainder of this construct (Overview, 5.1), and that the body is its expression; the failure of response by action and speech, and the loss of bodily control, are not logically exclusive of judgment still going on within. Until the original has been read, this paper does not use this comparison to decide who wins.
5. Beckett's Mirthless Laugh
In Beckett's novel Watt (1953), the character Arsene has a monologue on laughter. He distinguishes three laughs: the bitter laugh, which laughs at what is not good, the ethical laugh; the hollow laugh, which laughs at what is not true, the intellectual laugh; and the mirthless laugh, which laughs at what is unhappy, and which he calls the dianoetic laugh. He ranks the mirthless laugh highest, calling it "the laugh laughing at the laugh". This paper gives this from memory and secondhand accounts; the original is to be verified.
This series leaves the word "mirthless" to Beckett's own sense and does not borrow it to name any laughter of this series. The reason is that Beckett's mirthless laugh laughs at unhappiness itself, whereas this series' laughter of despair laughs not at unhappiness but at the self that is still searching within unhappiness; and this series' knowing smile is not mirthless either, but does not delight in gain (Section 6). Borrowing the word would run the three together.
The two can be set against each other. Beckett's laugh laughing at the laugh has a reflexivity that steps back layer upon layer: laughing at laughter, then laughing at that laughing. By this series' account, such reflexivity is already present at 13DD: the subject can negate its own negation. The laughter of despair does not step back but looks forward: it sees the searching, and is open to the future self. If Beckett's laugh has an other, it seems to be laughter itself; the other of the laughter of despair is the future self.
A further contrast lies in 苦笑, the word that in Chinese names both Beckett's bitter laugh and this series' wry laughter. Beckett's bitter laugh laughs at what is not good; the wry laughter of Paper III laughs at the cost of a construct of purpose. Where the two overlap is cost and what is not good; where they do not is that this series' wry laughter sees the cost as a remainder of the construct of purpose: the bitterness is an emotion that comes along, and the laughter is the jolt of cannot-not.
All these contrasts must wait to be settled until the original has been read. Beckett's monologue is itself material worth taking apart layer by layer by this series' formula: which remainder of which construct is Arsene laughing at? This paper leaves it as a remainder.
6. The Knowing Smile: Having Reached This Point, Letting That Place Remain His
6.1 Structure
The knowing smile is this: having understood what another has been saying all along, I finally arrive at the place he had spoken of long before, in words I had heard but not understood; I arrive, and I let that place remain his. Not doubting that every subject who reaches this point, whether earlier or later, would see it this way is how this shows itself in a laugh.
Taken apart by the Overview's formula:
- Construct: my old grasp of what he said. I had heard it long ago and could repeat it, but had not understood it.
- Remainder: what the old grasp failed to take in. It is not merely the content of the words; it is the place where he stood when he said them.
- Gap: within one person it is sudden: once heard and not understood, now arrived at. Between persons it is persistent: he has long been standing there.
- "Still": the old grasp can still be looked back on at this moment; this is presence. Whether the original words hold and whether the old grasp was correct are checked separately; the former is not used to vouch for the latter.
On the Overview's seeing grid, the knowing smile can be a crossing from one cell to another: he has long been in the row "the other sees", and only now do I cross from "I do not see" to "I see". But the crossing alone is not enough: getting a friend's joke five seconds late is the same kind of crossing. The two characters 会心 (huixin) speak of meeting another's heart; the knowing smile in this series further requires the layer of non dubito set out in 6.2.
6.2 Why at 15DD
Psychoanalysis IV, §2.3, places "I understand you" at 13DD; only "I confirm you are an independent end" is 15DD. If the knowing smile had only understanding, understanding his words and knowing, too, that he walked there himself, all this together could still be mere understanding: knowing is a cognitive grasp, not yet a posture toward him.
What makes the knowing smile 15DD is the further layer it has: the place seen is one that those who arrive have each walked to; it belongs to their own lives and is not a road laid for me; I let it remain theirs: I do not co-opt it as my achievement, do not put it to use, and do not need anyone to turn back and acknowledge that I have arrived. This is the layer at which "not doubting that the other is an end" lands in this laugh. The one who said the words is the one who, this time, made me look back; he arrived long ago, and he walked there himself; he need not be the first, and those who arrive here later are included too. It is unidirectional and does not require the other's non dubito; mutual non dubito belongs to 16DD (Section 7).
In a laugh, this layer appears as not doubting that every subject who reaches this point, whether earlier or later, would see it this way. "Would see it this way" means "seeing that the place is one each has walked to himself", not "reaching the same judgment". The shape of "counting only those who have already arrived, and saying nothing of ought" is not by itself peculiar to 15DD; aesthetic judgment has it too (SAE Judgment and Aesthetics, §5.1). What places it at 15DD is the not co-opting of the preceding paragraph. The connection between the two is a claim of this series (Section 9).
This non dubito about "whoever arrives here" covers only those who have reached this point. Those who have not yet arrived are not included, among them my own former self, who had heard but not understood; so it makes no demand on anyone. It must also be kept apart from Kant: Kant imputes agreement to everyone (§8) and says that everyone ought to agree (§19); the knowing smile holds its non dubito only toward subjects who have reached this point. It is non dubito, not prediction; it does not say that they will certainly say the same thing; doubts are present, remainders are present, and it stays open to questioning (Overview, 7.4). Three further things must be kept apart: "he is right" is a matter of truth or falsity, governed separately by Overview, 5.3; "I understand you" is a cognitive grasp of his mental state, available already at 13DD (Psychoanalysis IV, §2.3); only "that place is one he walked to himself, and I let it remain his" is 15DD.
"Mere arrival-laughter", with understanding but without this layer of non dubito, can occur all the same; it is recorded at the layer at which the laugher stands at that moment, and is not called the knowing smile in this series. Imagine a dominator who finally understands the other's consistent refusal, and knows, too, that it was not said for his sake; he may even understand that this refusal is something the other walked to himself, and that anyone who walked to that point would see it this way. But he treats this understanding as usable intelligence and uses it to control the other; he does not let that place remain the other's. What he lacks is not one more proposition understood, but the not co-opting itself; if he laughs, it is an instance of mere arrival-laughter, not the knowing smile.
It pairs with the laughter of despair, and the difference lies in who the other is: the other of the laughter of despair is the future self, which falls under the definition by the extended reading; the knowing smile is occasioned by looking back to a speaker and lets the places of those who arrive remain theirs, and its other falls directly under the definition of 15DD. The difference between the two does not lie in the direction of time: the non dubito of the knowing smile also reaches forward to those who will arrive later.
Matched against the four criteria by this structure:
| Minimum criteria of non dubito (Psychoanalysis IV, §2.2) | The knowing smile |
|---|---|
| 1. Survives remainder-impacts without withdrawing; sustained by acknowledging the remainder | The direction is "letting that place remain his". The remainder-impact is: I did not understand before, and may not understand fully now; he may have gone further. This posture stands by acknowledging these things, not by declaring "I understand it all" |
| 2. Allows the other's direction not to serve my direction | It does not co-opt his words as my achievement, nor put them to use. For whom he originally said them does not change this |
| 3. Certain about the direction, uncertain about outcomes | Certain about this posture; uncertain about outcomes: how far I have understood and how far he has gone are both fallible and remain under monitoring |
| 4. Not through self-coercion | This posture is not forced out: it is because I have arrived that I let that place remain his. Forcing oneself to accept a saying, or forcing oneself into deference, is not this laugh |
This series' knowing smile is a narrow subclass and must be kept apart from the everyday knowing smile (会心一笑). When two people exchange a smile of tacit understanding, it is mostly laughing at the same thing plus common knowledge, each counted at their own layer; only when each takes the other as an end and neither doubts that the other will laugh is it looking at each other and laughing, which belongs to 16DD (Section 7). What this paper means is the moment of arriving and not doubting.
6.3 Not Delighting in Gain: What Is Judged Is Not a Gain
What the knowing smile judges is not a gain of one's own. This is its boundary with the laughter of triumph at 14DD (Paper III, Section 2). If what this laugh judges is one's own accomplishment, and not merely the joy of having gained something that accompanies the looking back, then it is not the knowing smile; whether it is the laughter of triumph is checked separately within the frame of Paper III, 2.2. Joy by itself does not change the layer assigned. What the knowing smile judges is: "So this is what he meant"; that place is one he walked to himself, and anyone who arrives here would see it this way.
The emotions that come along can be of many kinds: gratitude, a sense of shame, joy; if the speaker is no longer living, a wistful sorrow. By Overview, 5.1, these are all emotions, which may or may not come, and they are not evidence; the jolt of cannot-not on seeing the remainder is the laugh itself. "Not delighting in gain" does not mean "mirthless" either. This series leaves the word "mirthless" to Beckett's own sense (Section 5).
6.4 An Example: The Smile at the Raised Flower (This Paper's Reading)
Wumenguan (无门关, The Gateless Barrier), case 6: At the assembly on Vulture Peak (灵山会上), the World-Honoured One held up a flower and showed it to the assembly (拈花示众). At that time all were silent (众皆默然); only the Venerable Mahākāśyapa broke into a smile (破颜微笑). The World-Honoured One said: I have the treasury of the true Dharma eye (正法眼藏) … I entrust it to Mahākāśyapa (付嘱摩诃迦叶).
By this paper's structure, this is a positive instance of the knowing smile. Holding up the flower is the World-Honoured One's "saying". This reading makes a further assumption, which the case does not supply on its own: Mahākāśyapa had long since heard the World-Honoured One's earlier teachings; the construct is his old grasp of those teachings, and the remainder is the place where the World-Honoured One stood when he taught; at the moment the flower was held up, he arrived. As for the assembly, the original records only their silence, and this paper does not rewrite it as "not seeing". Mahākāśyapa's breaking into a smile is his arriving where the World-Honoured One was; on this paper's account, the smile also lets the place where the World-Honoured One was remain the World-Honoured One's, not doubting that whoever reaches this point would see it this way. The smile is unidirectional: the original records only Mahākāśyapa's smile; it does not record the World-Honoured One smiling, and there is no explicit text of the two looking at each other and laughing. The World-Honoured One's subsequent "I entrust it to Mahākāśyapa", if read as his confirmation of Mahākāśyapa, uses words and the transmission of the Dharma, not the two laughing face to face; whether it constitutes mutual non dubito belongs to 16DD, and this series does not decide it. The structural reading above is this paper's reading.
6.5 A Constructed Case: A Concrete Remainder
My father used to say, "To be safe and well is a blessing" (平安是福), and as a boy I nodded when I heard it. Once I had things of my own that I was afraid to lose, one day I suddenly understood, and gave a little laugh. The saying still has such a remainder: the fear beneath the words. That fear belonged to his whole life; it is not a maxim to be judged right or wrong. Anyone who reaches this point, who has come to understand the saying through having things he fears to lose, would see it this way; my father had long been there. I do not use that fear to prove that I have understood at last, nor do I finish telling that life on his behalf; it remains his. So what this constructed case illustrates is non dubito, not merely understanding a saying. The remainder is concrete, not a general proposition such as "truth always has something left unexhausted"; it can be said, and it can be pointed out to others.
6.6 Qingyuan Weixin (This Paper's Reading)
There is an often-quoted Chan passage from Qingyuan Weixin: Thirty years ago, before I, this old monk, had studied Chan (未参禅时), I saw mountains as mountains and waters as waters (见山是山，见水是水). Later, when I had met a true teacher in person (亲见知识) and found a way in (有个入处), I saw mountains as not mountains and waters as not waters. Now that I have found a place of rest (得个休歇处), as before (依前) I see mountains just as mountains and waters just as waters (见山祇是山，见水祇是水). The original does not mention laughter, nor does it say what the "teacher" (知识) of those years had said; what follows is this paper's reading, and it is not load-bearing.
If there is a laugh, it happens in the third stage: the two characters 依前, "as before", mean having walked for thirty years and arrived at the place that was heard of and pointed to back then. It is not the reversal of the second stage, "so mountains are not mountains after all", but seeing that mountains are still mountains while knowing that they are not only that. What it judges is not a gain: a place of rest is not a gain but a place where one can stop. The source is the entry on "Chan Master Qingyuan Weixin of Jizhou" (吉州青原惟信禅师) in fascicle 17 of the Wudeng Huiyuan (五灯会元, Compendium of the Five Lamps); the CBETA edition (Xuzangjing 卍新纂续藏经, X80 No. 1565, p. 361c14) reads 依前 ("as before"), while other transcriptions read 依然 ("still"). Immediately after this passage the original continues: "Great assembly: these three views, are they the same or different?" (大众。这三般见解。是同是别。). Weixin hands the three stages over to the assembly to question, which fits the openness to being questioned described in Section 7 of the Overview; this paper borrows it without making it load-bearing.
6.7 Knowing Without Showing
The knowing smile is often silent. In the Overview's inner–outer grid, the cell "laughs inwardly, does not laugh outwardly" holds, besides suppressed laughter, knowing without showing. This is not laughter held down; this laugh simply has no need of expression. It lets the places of those who arrive remain theirs, does not doubt those who have arrived here, yet requires no one to arrive; nor does it require the one who said the words to turn back and confirm me; it is open to being questioned, but does not require an intersection (Overview, Section 7).
7. The Upper Bound: Laughing at the Same Thing, Tacit Understanding, and Looking at Each Other and Laughing
7.1 Why Stop at 15DD
This series analyses, one by one, the laugher's judgment at the moment of laughing, and goes no further than 15DD. 16DD requires two subjects, both standing in the position of subject, each not doubting the other. In the words of the Methodological Overview, §1.7: two subjects mutually acknowledge each other as ends in themselves, mutually chisel, mutually do not doubt. Psychoanalysis IV, §2.4, notes that what exactly happens in the individual at 16DD has not yet been sufficiently clarified within the overall SAE framework. This series does not cross that line.
7.2 Three Things to Keep Apart
Two people laughing at the same point can be doing three different things:
| Laughing at the same thing | Tacit understanding | Looking at each other and laughing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Structure | Two subjects each judge and each laugh; each judgment is their own | Laughing at the same thing, plus common knowledge: I know that you know, and you know that I know | Mutual non dubito, in which each takes the other as an end; in laughter, I do not doubt that you will laugh, and you do not doubt that I will: laughter is something felt, and can only be not doubted |
| Corresponds to | The Overview's seventh thesis: common, not identical | The distribution of knowledge | 16DD in Methodological Overview, §1.7: mutual non dubito |
| Layer | Each at the layer at which each stands, within the scope of 13DD to 15DD | Still each at their own layer | 16DD, outside the scope |
What separates looking at each other and laughing from tacit understanding is precisely non dubito. Mutual knowledge does not yield mutual non dubito. Two children who bully another exchange a glance of tacit understanding over the child they are bullying, and burst out laughing; they each know, and perhaps each is sure that the other will laugh. If this sureness can be sustained only by treating the one laughed at as material, then, by Psychoanalysis IV, §1.2, a "non dubito" that can be maintained only by denying the other's independence is not non dubito but forced construct-closure; that glance then falls in the middle column, probably each child's own 14DD derision.
Nor is non dubito prediction. "He laughs every time" is a grasp of behaviour; the "will laugh" in looking at each other and laughing refers to inner laughter, that is, the jolt of cannot-not, felt, directed at this remainder of this construct (Overview, 5.1), not to a movement. The jolt within another person (felt, in the sense of Overview, 5.1, not an emotion) cannot be lived through by me in his stead; the expression I see and the guesses I make do not claim it for him either. I can hear his report and let it correct my understanding; non dubito here means not letting my own expectation occupy that place, which is to say acknowledgment. So "I do not doubt that you will laugh" acknowledges that the jolt within you is yours. If you do not laugh outwardly, that does not touch it (the Overview's inner–outer grid); if you say you did not laugh within, I take your word for it, and I do not judge that you failed to see (Overview, 7.3). What I do not doubt is you, the owner of that jolt, not a content I settle on your behalf; so it does not fall on the side of delusional conviction, of which Psychoanalysis IV, §2.2 criterion 3, speaks, and it remains open to questioning. Not doubting a feeling that only the other can live through is acknowledging the other as the subject of that feeling; two people acknowledging each other in this way is how each taking the other as an end shows itself in laughter. To link this abstention from writing the other's feeling in his stead to the full relation of each taking the other as an end is a claim of this series; whether it is sufficient is still to be argued (Section 9).
This also shows how far "not expecting an intersection in advance" in Overview, 7.2, reaches: it is the unidirectional case within the scope. I do not require you to laugh at the same point; I am only open to your judgment. At 16DD, the intersection is something both sides do not doubt; it is neither demanded nor set in advance; it comes into being at the moment of looking at each other, from both sides together.
The knowing smile and looking at each other and laughing sit exactly astride the line between 15DD and 16DD: the knowing smile is unidirectional non dubito and does not require the other to turn back; looking at each other and laughing is mutual. So this series no longer treats "shared smiling" as the threshold from 15DD to 16DD: the phrase packs several things together. Laughing at the same thing and tacit understanding are within the scope; looking at each other and laughing is 16DD's own laughter, which this series registers only and does not develop.
7.3 An Example: Zhuangzi, "The Great and Venerable Teacher"
Zhuangzi, "The Great and Venerable Teacher" (大宗师, "Dazongshi"; checked against an electronic edition): Zisi, Ziyu, Zili and Zilai, the four of them, were talking together and said, "Who can take non-being as his head, life as his spine and death as his rump? Who knows that death and life, survival and perishing, are all one body? We will be his friends." "The four looked at one another and laughed, with no disagreement in their hearts (相视而笑，莫逆于心), and so they became friends (遂相与为友)." In the same chapter, the passage on Zisanghu, Mengzifan and Ziqinzhang opens with the three already friends with one another (三人相与友); later in it the same wording of looking at one another and having no disagreement appears, and in one edition its closing sentence lacks the character 为 (wei).
The sequence in the passage of the four is: talking together, looking at one another, laughing, no disagreement in their hearts, becoming friends. What follows is this paper's reading. First, each understood the question on his own; "looking at one another" is the laughter of both sides meeting in that glance; "no disagreement in their hearts" means that their minds did not run against each other, and carries precisely mutual non dubito, in which each takes the other as an end; that neither doubted the other would laugh in this way is how it shows itself in laughter; "and so they became friends" is the 16DD relation being established thereby. The passage of the three opens with them already friends; there, looking at one another and laughing is an existing relation showing itself once again in laughter, and the reading "established thereby" is not applied to that passage. This series registers both passages as beyond the upper bound.
7.4 An Example: Three Layers Tried in One Burst of Laughter (This Paper's Reading)
At the end of Batman: The Killing Joke, Batman has caught the Joker once again. He tells the Joker that he does not want to kill him, that he still wants to help him and hopes he can change; the Joker refuses, saying it is too late, and then tells a joke. Two inmates of an asylum want to escape and climb onto the roof; just across a narrow gap lie other rooftops. The first gets across in a single leap; the second does not dare to jump. The first offers to switch on his flashlight so that the second can walk over along the beam; the second refuses, asking whether the first takes him for a fool: the first would switch the light off when he was halfway across, and down he would go. Then the two of them, Batman and the Joker, laugh together. This retelling is based on the original work and on public plot summaries, and does not quote the original's dialogue; the ending of this work has long been read in different ways, and this paper takes only that laugh.
This paper's reading rests on two premises, both of them readings, not plot: at that moment, neither of the two doubts that the other is an end; and what the joke says is precisely that neither of them can really get across, each trapped in his own condition. In the joke one man does leap across, but the one who tells it, the one who leaps and the one who dares not are all madmen. Batman is the one who got across first: he has gone one step further than the Joker, yet is still in the same asylum, and what he holds out is a light that can be switched off at any moment. On this reading, Batman, knowing full well that the Joker will not change, still says that he hopes he will; the Joker himself also knows that he will not change, and does not want to. On these two premises, three layers can be tried separately in this burst of laughter, but not every layer applies to both men:
| Layer | In this laugh |
|---|---|
| Self-mockery (13DD) | Both have it: the two madmen are themselves, one having gone a step further, one refusing to move; each laughs at his own share of futility |
| The laughter of despair (15DD, trial reading) | Applies only to Batman: he is convinced the Joker will not change, yet still hopes he will, which is precisely still searching inside "there is nothing left". Tried against the four conditions of 2.3: he sees the self that is still searching as his own direction; the laugh bursts out suddenly, read as his unexpectedly seeing that he is still searching, a searching not held up by gritted teeth; he does not settle the matter for his future self (the plot does not supply this condition; it is this paper's reading); what he gives the Joker is hope, not a command. The Joker does not fit this row: he does not want to change and has shut the door on his future self; and his direction must be sustained by treating others as material, so it fails definitional condition 4 |
| Mutual non dubito (16DD, registered only) | Between the two: at that moment neither doubts that the other is an end. The joke is about "doubt": you would switch off the flashlight; yet what they laugh out together is non dubito: I do not doubt that you will laugh, and you do not doubt that I will. That the Joker's direction must be sustained by treating others as material rules out his laughter of despair (definitional condition 4, whose object is that direction itself); his non dubito at that moment toward Batman as a person has a different object, and non dubito is object-specific (Psychoanalysis IV, §3.1), so the two do not cancel out |
This example is an illustration, not a proof. It illustrates four things. First, attention can be mixed: a burst of laughter can be divided into shares, each recorded at its own layer (Overview, 5.4). Second, self-mockery and the laughter of despair can coexist in the same situation and the same burst of laughter (2.3). Third, what definitional condition 4 rules out: a direction that must be sustained by denying others. Fourth, looking at each other and laughing can wrap 13DD and 15DD laughs within a single burst of laughter. 16DD itself is still registered only, not developed.
7.5 Common Knowledge (Contrast; to Be Verified)
"I know that you know, and you know that I know", continued recursively, is what logic calls common knowledge. David Lewis, in Convention (1969), describes it as layers of knowing that can be stacked upward without limit; Michael Chwe, in Rational Ritual (2001), discusses how public occasions generate common knowledge. The concept of common knowledge has been checked against Chwe's own public account; Lewis's book and Chwe's specific discussion of eye contact in his book have not been obtained and are to be verified, and their not having been obtained is not taken to mean that such discussion is absent. This series borrows them only to explain the structure of tacit understanding and to mark how looking at each other and laughing differs from it: the mark of looking at each other and laughing is mutual non dubito, not common knowledge; common knowledge often accompanies it.
7.6 The Laughter Series Stops Before Looking at Each Other
The Laughter Series begins with tendency at 12DD and passes through the owner at 13DD and purpose at 14DD to non dubito at 15DD. From 13DD on, what laughter judges is always "the construct still has such a remainder", and in every case no one loses; 12DD has only the material of its tendency. At looking at each other and laughing, laughter is no longer one person's judgment alone but non dubito between two subjects. This series stops here and leaves it as one large remainder of this series.
8. Connections and Contrasts
| Point in this paper | Connection (within SAE) | Contrast (external) |
|---|---|---|
| 15DD is non dubito: not doubting that the other is an end; unidirectional | Methodological Overview, §1.7, and the V3.1 revision note; Psychoanalysis (IV), §2.2, §2.3 (Cert) | — |
| The laughter of despair: the subject is convinced there is no way and is still searching; the construct laughed at is at 13DD, the one who judges at 15DD | Overview, Section 3 (focus) and 6.1 (layer) (the "object" in Psychoanalysis IV, §3.1, means what is faced that activates the layer, not the construct laughed at) | Jin Shengtan at his execution (reportedly; illustration) |
| At 15DD by a four-condition definition; exclusivity written into the definition, the bridge table as a testable claim; kept apart from self-mockery | Overview, Section 3, 5.4, 6.1, the inner–outer grid; Psychoanalysis (II); Psychoanalysis (IV), §1.2, §2.2, §3.1 | — |
| The other is the future self (extended reading); the four criteria compared one by one | Methodological Overview, §1.7; Psychoanalysis (IV), §2.2, the four minimum criteria | — |
| Boundary with certainty: whether it is used as a foundation | — | Descartes, Second Meditation |
| Boundary with humour that looks down | Paper III, Section 6 | Freud, "Humour"; Schopenhauer, Vol. II, Ch. 8 (humour) |
| Whether judgment and the body taking over are mutually exclusive: a question to be verified | Overview, Section 5 | Plessner, Laughing and Crying (to be verified) |
| "Mirthless" left to its original sense | — | Beckett, Watt (to be verified) |
| The knowing smile: having reached this point, letting the places of those who arrive remain theirs; not doubting whoever arrives here is how this shows; unidirectional | Psychoanalysis (IV), §2.3; Paper III, the laughter of triumph; Education as Subject-Condition, §3.2, "the 15DD peek-a-boo" (the world can accommodate two different purposes), as a side light; SAE Judgment and Aesthetics, §5.1 (contrast of shape) | Wumenguan, case 6; Qingyuan Weixin; Kant, §8, §19 (boundary) |
| Laughing at the same thing, tacit understanding, and looking at each other and laughing (mutual non dubito; laughter is something felt and can only be not doubted) | Methodological Overview, §1.7; Psychoanalysis (IV), §2.2–§2.4; the Overview's seventh thesis | Zhuangzi, "The Great and Venerable Teacher"; The Killing Joke; Lewis; Chwe |
9. Remainders of This Paper
- "The future self" as the other: this is this series' extended reading; neither the Methodological Overview nor Psychoanalysis IV says this itself; if the upstream papers are revised in future, this point must be brought into line with them.
- The exclusivity of the laughter of despair: at 15DD by the four-condition definition, with exclusivity written into the definition; what can be tested are the 13DD and 14DD rows of the bridge table, together with the falsification condition in 2.3.
- The non dubito of the knowing smile: the connection between "not doubting that whoever arrives here would see it this way" and "letting that place remain theirs" is a claim of this series; how it is to be kept apart from prediction and from Kant's universal assent across further cases remains to be tested.
- Jin Shengtan: the versions differ; a version must be chosen as the basis; illustration only.
- Originals to be verified: Beckett, Watt; Plessner, Laughing and Crying; Lewis, Convention; Chwe's discussion of eye contact in his book.
- Plessner: whether the body taking over excludes judgment is a question about one and the same case, to be verified against the original.
- 16DD: looking at each other and laughing is a 16DD laugh; this series registers it only and does not develop it.
- From "not doubting that you will laugh" to each taking the other as an end: this series' claim is that laughter is something felt, which only the person himself can live through, and which others can only not doubt; not doubting another's feeling is acknowledging the other as the subject of that feeling (7.2). Whether this is enough to make up the whole of what Methodological Overview, §1.7, calls mutually acknowledging each other as ends in themselves is still to be argued.
Conclusion
A 15DD laugh is a judgment made standing in non dubito. The other of the knowing smile falls directly under "not doubting that the other is an end"; the other of the laughter of despair is the future self, which falls here under this series' extended reading.
The laughter of despair is the limiting case of the formula: the subject is convinced that there is nothing left; this grasp claims to have no remainder; laughter sees that it still has such a remainder: the self that is still searching. It has little to do with whether there really is a way out. It differs from self-mockery in the same situation. This paper defines it by four conditions: the seeker is seen as one's own direction; this direction is not held up by gritting one's teeth, with "unexpectedness" as its marker (to be checked separately); it is open to the future self; it does not require others to submit. Under this definition it is at 15DD; exclusivity cannot be derived from within a laugh and is therefore written into the definition; what can be tested is whether other standings can see the seeker this way.
The knowing smile is arriving at the place another had spoken of long before, in words I had heard but not understood, and letting that place remain his; not doubting that every subject who reaches this point, whether earlier or later, would see it this way is how this shows itself in a laugh. It is unidirectional, and what it judges is not a gain of one's own. In neither kind of laughter does my purpose enter the construct laughed at; in both, no one loses.
Laughing at the same thing is two subjects each laughing on their own; tacit understanding adds common knowledge; looking at each other and laughing is mutual non dubito, in which each takes the other as an end, and belongs to 16DD; I do not doubt that you will laugh, and you do not doubt that I will: that is how it shows itself in laughter, because laughter is something felt and can only be not doubted. Several layers can be distinguished within one burst of laughter, each recorded at its own layer. The Laughter Series stops before looking at each other: from 13DD on, what laughter judges is always "the construct still has such a remainder"; after looking at each other, it is a matter between two subjects.
References
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- Freud, S. "Der Humor" ("Humour"), 1927; English translation "Humour", trans. Joan Riviere, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 9 (1928). English translation checked and read.
- Schopenhauer, A. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vol. II, ch. 8. English translation: Haldane & Kemp.
- Plessner, H. Lachen und Weinen (Laughing and Crying), 1941. From memory and secondhand accounts; to be verified.
- Beckett, S. Watt. 1953. From memory and secondhand accounts; to be verified.
- Wudeng Huiyuan (五灯会元), fascicle 17, "Chan Master Qingyuan Weixin of Jizhou" (吉州青原惟信禅师). The CBETA edition (Xuzangjing 卍新纂续藏经, X80 No. 1565, p. 361c14) reads 依前见山祇是山; checked against the CBETA edition.
- Wumenguan (无门关), case 6, "The World-Honoured One Holds Up a Flower" (世尊拈花), Taishō T48 No. 2005. Checked against the CBETA electronic transcription.
- Zhuangzi, "The Great and Venerable Teacher" (大宗师). The two passages with "相视而笑，莫逆于心" checked against an electronic edition.
- Moore, A. & Bolland, B. Batman: The Killing Joke. DC Comics, 1988. Only the closing laugh is used; paraphrased, dialogue not quoted.
- Lewis, D. Convention: A Philosophical Study. Harvard University Press, 1969. Original not obtained; to be verified.
- Chwe, M. S.-Y. Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge. Princeton University Press, 2001. The concept of common knowledge checked against the author's own public account; the passage in the book on eye contact to be verified.
- The story of Jin Shengtan at his execution: reportedly; many versions.
- Han Qin. SAE Judgment and Aesthetics — In Tribute to Kant (the SAE aesthetics general framework). DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19296710. §5.1 checked against the original sentence on the current Chinese page.