A book of jokes and a book about them. Ted Cohen loves a good laugh, but as a philosopher, he is also interested in how jokes work, why they work and when they don't. The delight at the end of a joke is the result of a complex set of conditions and processes, and Cohen takes us through these conditi[...]

Creation versus evolution. Nature versus nurture. Free will versus determinism. Every November at the University of Chicago, the best minds in the world consider the question that ranks with these as one of the most enduring of human history: latke or hamantash? This great latke-hamantash debate, oc[...]