Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to Erin Kelly, Lionel McPherson, and Yehuda Shavit—wonderful philosophers and dear friends—for their practical help, commendable patience, and unflinching support. The initial research for the book was facilitated by the help of Sarah Blatcher Cohen and Gary Cohen, who promised to change my life, and did.
I am indebted to Simon Critchley for alerting me to the importance of Shaftesbury and to the Kierkegaard Research Center in Copenhagen for hosting me. I express my heartfelt gratitude to Larry Ventis and Larry Mintz, who hosted me as a visiting scholar respectively at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, and at the University of Maryland, Maryland. In Williamsburg, I enjoyed the college’s updated library on humor as well as the support and interest of John Morreall, who, at the time, had written all the major books on philosophy and humor. I am deeply grateful to him.
I am truly obliged to the philosophers who commented on previous drafts of the monograph: Erin Kelly, Yehuda Shavit, Noa Shein, Alicia Tessler, Yair Shlein, and Eli Benzaquen. I am grateful to David Segal and Itay Ehre for their advice on subjects pertaining to their respective areas of expertise.
I owe much to the patience of various English editors: Judi Felber, Kate Neptune, David Kelly-Hedrick, and especially Linda Landau, who managed to guide the work to completion.
I wish to express my gratitude to my colleagues and friends at the International Society for Humor Studies, the International Society for Value Inquiry, and the various associations of Practical Philosophy for their sustained interest in and support of my work.
I owe particular thanks to my faithful assistants, the staff and academics of my department, especially Simi Sarig, Hillel Nossek and Eva Berger, who supported my research. The extraordiany help of the librarians at the College of Management, Rishon LeZion, Israel, and the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, is greatly appreciated.
I am especially grateful to my parents and my loyal friends for their patience, support, and love.
Last but not least, I wish to express my gratitude for the financial support provided for this research, first, by the chairs of the School of Media Studies (Arnon Zuckerman) and the Department of Behavioral Sciences (Amichai Zilberman) at the College of Management, Rishon LeZion, Israel; and, later, by the Research Fund of the Research Authority (Hillel Nossek, Zvi Safra, Seev Neumann) of the College of Management Academic Studies, Rishon LeZion, Israel. The former enabled me to start the research, and the latter, to bring it to completion.