KOESTLER AS SYSTEM-MAKER
INSIGHT AND OUTLOOK.
By
Arthur Koestler. The Mocmillon Compony.
$5.00.
The author presents in this book "a unifying theory of humor,
art and discovery, in which these are shown to differ merely in degree
and not in kind"; he also promises an "attempt to show the possibility
of a system of ethics which is neither utilitarian nor dogmatic, but
derived from the same integrative tendency in the evolutionary process
to which the creative activities of art and discovery are traced."
At the outset, one would say that a theory of this kind could not be
valid-it tries to bind together
in
one system too many heterogeneous
things: art, humor, scientific discovery, ethics, and, on top of everything
else, organic evolution. But, the author would maintain, the attempt
will appear impossible only if we assume that there is a sharp cleavage
between the dichotomies of the dualistic tradition: such as "nature"
and civilization," "fact" and "value," "mind" and "matter." Let us
adopt a monistic outlook; then, a common theory of life, art, science
and ethics will appear not only feasible but imperative.
The book begins with an analysis of the comic. True to his meth–
odological principle, Koestler sets out to investigate the physiology of
laughter. His aim is to discover that type of "stimulus" which is com–
mon to all instances of the typical response to the comic, laughter. The
search proceeds on two levels: there is a phenomenological analysis
of comical, laughable events, situations, and inventions, and a physiolog–
ical discussion of the corresponding organic processes. And, sure enough,
some kind of parallelism does emerge. Phenomenologically, we see a
sudden merging of disparate contexts of thought and action which
produces a startling effect of double perspective; this is the essence of
the joke. Physiologically, we see that some neural process suddenly
becomes "separated" from its original emotional charge; this leaves the
organism with a surplus of energy which "explodes" in a fit of laughter.
For the merging of two disparate contexts, as a result of which
each is endowed with a teasing double meaning, Koestler coins the term
"bi-sociation"-his key word for all that is creative and inventive in the
life of the mind. Scientific discovery also is an instance of bi-sociation,
but produces neither comic effect nor laughter because the emotional
charge is absent: this field is "emotionally neutral." But these two do not
exhaust the field of bi-sociation. Koestler finds other creative, bi-sociative
activities which do have a considerable emotional content, although
not in the comic vein-tragedy and "serious" art, for example.
