CFA: Conference on Humor and Philosophy (CHaP)

Call for Abstracts

CfA: Conference on Humor and Philosophy (CHaP)

This is a call for abstracts for the first Conference on Humor and Philosophy (CHaP), organized by Jordan MacKenzie and David Shoemaker, and sponsored by Cornell University and the University of Virginia. It will take place at Cornell University (in Ithaca, NY), on September 17-18, 2027. This will be a read-ahead workshop discussing cutting-edge new work on the philosophy of humor. The aim is to foster and encourage excellent work in the philosophy of humor, even by those who haven’t tried their hand at it before. Topics may include (but are not restricted to):

• What makes something funny or unfunny

• Dispositionalism about humor: pros and cons

• The nature of amusement as an emotion, and relative to other emotions

• The normativity of the amusing/funny

• Humor and the philosophy of language

• Humor and metaethics

• Humor’s vices and/or virtues

• Senses of humor (what are they, what makes them good or bad…?)

• Humor and interpersonal relations/regard

• Response-dependence and/or response-independence about the funny

• The morality of mockery, put-downs, sarcasm, and ridicule

• Responsibility for being amused at certain things

• The morality/immorality of engaging in certain kinds of humor

• Relativism, subjectivism, universalism, and/or objectivism about humor

• The power of satire

• Punching up/down as a (non)valuable metaphorical guide for humor

• Humor as a human value

• Absurdity and humor

• Offensive, gross-out, or ghoulish humor (for or against)

• Cleverness and its relation (or not) to humor

All abstracts should be prepared for anonymous review and should be no more than two double-spaced pages (1-inch margins, 12 point font, bibliography doesn’t count against page restrictions), and they must be submitted to [email protected]. The deadline for submission is noon, EST, December 15, 2026. No late abstracts will be accepted. Verdicts on abstracts will be sent by February 15, 2027.

Committed participants:

• Paul Audi (Rochester)

• Claire Horisk (Missouri)

• Jordan MacKenzie (UVA)

• Emily McTernan (UCL)

• Nate Sharadin (The University of Hong Kong)

• David Shoemaker (Cornell)

The two-day workshop will consist in the discussion of eight papers, so two more presenters will be selected from the pool of submitted abstracts. Barring more federal extortion, we hope to be able to provide lodging and travel support to participants.

For any questions, please contact Jordan MacKenzie ([email protected]) and David Shoemaker ([email protected]).