Chris Kramer

Marquette University
Rock Valley College
Marquette University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2015
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America
  •  429
    Parrhesia, Humor, and Resistance
    Israeli Journal of Humor Research 9 (1): 22-46. 2020.
    This paper begins by taking seriously former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ response in his What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? to systematic violence and oppression. He claims that direct argumentation is not the ideal mode of resistance to oppression: “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.” I will focus on a few elements of this playful mode of resistance that conflict with the more straightforward strivings for abstract, universal, objectiv…Read more
  •  297
    Dave Chappelle's Positive Propaganda
    In Mark Ralkowski (ed.), Dave Chappelle and Philosophy, Popular Culture and Philosophy. pp. 75-88. 2021.
    Some of Dave Chappelle’s uses of storytelling about seemingly mundane events, like his experiences with his “white friend Chip” and the police, are examples of what W.E.B. Du Bois calls “Positive Propaganda.” This is in contrast to “Demagoguery,” the sort of propaganda described by Jason Stanley that obstructs empathic recognition of others, and undermines reasonable debate among citizens regarding policies that matter: the justice system, welfare, inequality, and race, for example. Some of Chap…Read more
  •  174
    "The Mind is not a Vessel to be Filled but a Fire to be Kindled", and "Education is Not the Filling of Pail But the Lighting of a Fire", and ... Something About a Horse ... You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it smile? Because of the long face and all? (No, that can’t be it). Anyway, borrowing a bit from Plutarch and Yeats (maybe, there is no agreement on whether he said that about pails and fires), and some idiom from 12th Century Old English about horses walking on water, I assum…Read more
  •  15
    Mark Twain’s Serious Humor and That Peculiar Institution: Christianity
    In Alan H. Goldman (ed.), Mark Twain and Philosophy, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 125-136. 2017.
    According to Manuel Davenport, “The best humorists--Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Bob Hope, and Mort Sahl--share [a] mixture of detachment and desire, eagerness to believe, and irreverence concerning the possibility of certainty. And when they become serious about their convictions--as Twain did about colonialism…they cease to be humorous” (p. 171). I agree with the first part, but not the second. Humor does require disengagement, but not completely such that one has no emotional interest in the subj…Read more
  •  11
    A Wise Person Proportions Their Beliefs With Humor
    The Philosophy of Humor Yearbook 2 (1): 141-143. 2021.
    “Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony” (Kierkegaard The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, pg.6, thesis XV) What has proportion to do with humor or irony? And what do either of these have to do with being human? Jokes, laughter, and funniness connote excess, exaggeration, incongruity, dissonance, etc., the opposite of proportion--balance, symmetry, Aristotle’s golden mean. Yet, The Philosopher maintains, the wit has f…Read more
  • The Playful Thought Experiments of Louis CK
    In Mark Ralkowski (ed.), Louis CK and Philosophy. pp. 225-236. 2016.
    It is trivially true that comedians make jokes and thus are not serious; they are “just playing.” But watching Louis CK, especially his performances in Chewed Up, Shameless, and Hilarious, it is evident that he has more in mind than simply getting his audience to frivolously guffaw. I will make the case that this is so given the content of some of his humor which centers on areas of socio-political-ethical tensions that can be uncomfortable when addressed in a direct, “bona-fide” communicative m…Read more