John and Ken broadcast from beautiful Portland, Oregon, speaking with the authors of the (perhaps unlikely) best selling book Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Humor. John and Ken point out that some philosophical problems are, to those unfamiliar with philosophy, outright laughable: questions such as how do we know other people have minds, or how we can possibly walk from one point to another, often provoke chuckles from undergrads. Our hosts and their guests explain that one of the parallels between humor and philosophy is that both generally begin with an obvious premise and lead to a startling or counterintuitive conclusion.

Our guests Tom Cathcart and Daniel Klein tell the joke that got them started thinking about philosophy and humor, giving both the Hegelian and the Epistemological versions. John and Ken question just how far the connection between philosophy and jokes goes, and debate ensues. Ken then proposes a game in which he gives them a philosophical topic and the guests must 1) explain it in “dry terms,” then 2) explain it via a joke. First up: Existentialism.

来电者提供他们自己的笑话，并提出更多的问题。哲学和笑话是否都是有时把一个观点延伸得太过了?笑是普遍的还是文化的?它真的源于焦虑感吗?为什么社会禁忌的话题总是那么有趣，为什么我们要嘲笑别人的痛苦?听一听这些争论的问题的答案，以及学习一些新的笑话。

• Roving Philosophical Report(seek to 5:06): Zoe Corneli goes on a mission to seek out connections between popular humor and philosophical thought. She starts with Eddy Lawrence, and progresses to Woody Allen and Monty Python. She finds that comedians can indeed be philosophers, and John seems to prove that the point works in reverse.

• 60-Second Philosopher(seek to 50:05): An expert in comedy himself, Ian Shoales points out the possible interpretation of Wittgenstein as a comedian. He questions the difference between thought experiments and jokes, and explains why there very well might be a hippopotamus in your living room right now.