Tradition as Gelotopoesis: an Essay on the Hermeneutics of Laughter in Martin Heidegger

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that laughter stands as the tricky possibility of the question of the meaning of Being, which ridiculously limits and gets limited by tradition beyond limitation. I introduce a hermeneutics of laughter and contend that the event of Ereignis receives its meaning from Gelotopoesis--the poetic act of laughter. Moreover, I claim that the echo of Gelotopoesis becomes the possibility of the transmission of tradition and is attested by a hypertonic boastfulness and a hypotonic irony. These two echoing tonalities question an unquestionable presence, which tradition never questions, in the most excessive manner so that it becomes the proper question of tradition once again. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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