Abstract

According to Kant, human stupidity reveals, a lack of “power of judgement”, or as Peirce might say, a lack of abductive competence that confuses the relevant and the irrelevant. Peirce anticipated this idea. He writes: “I have come to the conclusion that it is folly to attempt to set limits which human stupidity cannot overpass. Apparently both, Semiosis and human Stupidity are unlimited. The only two possible reactions to this condition humain are either critical reasoning or laughing. It was Aristotle who first defined man as at the same time animal syllogans and as animal ridens: an animal that can reason and that can laugh. I want to highlight a particular aspect of this very general double determination, namely the relation between the Peircean logic of abduction and the Freudian “logic” of the comic.