You've Got To Be Kidding!

You've Got to Be Kidding!: How Jokes Can Help You Think is a thoughtful and accessible analysis of the ways in which jokes illustrate how we think critically, and how the thinking process goes awry in everyday human situations.

• Uses jokes to illustrate the various mistakes or fallacies that are typically identified and discussed in courses on critical reasoning
• Provides an effective way to learn critical thinking skills since jokes often describe real-life situations where it really matters whether a person thinks well or not
• Demonstrates how philosophy is actually very practical and clearly related to real- life human experiences
• Explains how developing good reasoning habits can make a real difference in all aspects of one's life

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xiii

1 Why Thinking Critically Is Important 1

2 Fallacies of Relevance 13

3 Fallacies of Evidence 45

4 Fallacies of Assumption 80

5 Critical Thinking and Objective Truth 97

References 116

Index 119

John Capps is an associate professor of philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Senior Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. He has written many articles on the history of American philosophy, pragmatism, and science education.

Donald Capps is a professor in psychology of religion at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of more than 20 books, including A Time to Laugh: The Religion of Humor (2005).

You've Got to Be Kidding! How Jokes Can Help You Think focuses on a single, core issue at the heart of philosophy: our ability to think critically. The authors, a father and son team of distinguished professors, aren't kidding around when they show us that jokes illustrate the various ways in which the thinking process goes awry. They argue that jokes “work” (we laugh) by invoking standards of rational thinking that are violated by the joke itself. They also reveal that many jokes assume certain fundamental ethical and moral truths, and what makes them amusing or funny is when one of these truths is violated. The punch line, of course, is that jokes are an invaluable resource for discussing issues of objective truth and for thinking critically about values. They also suggest that thinking critically is often a collaborative process, and that thinking often goes awry when one tries to “go it alone.” You've Got to Be Kidding! is a thoughtful and accessible analysis of the ways jokes illustrate how we think critically -- and that's no laughing matter! "A great book. But what do I know?"
- Socrates

"This book got me out of my cave."
- Plato

"An excellent book! Well, relatively."
- Albert Einstein

"It made me chuckle."
- Mona Lisa