James L. Kelley, HANS EYSENCK’S THEORY OF HUMOR AND THE WESTERN TRIFUNCTIONAL SCHEMA, Romeosyne “Myths and Memes,” No. 7 (Norman, OK: Romanity Press, 2020). (original) (raw)

The study examines Hans Eysenck's (1916-1997) “multicomponent view of humor” (Gibson, 2019: 61). First, Eysenck's earliest theory of personality, which follows a long tradition in the history of psychology of importing metaphysical and cultural schemas into research programs, is outlined. These traditional schema importations, the study demonstrates, use empirical observation and mathematical analysis to derive a small set of categories that turns out not to differ substantively from the three mental faculties recognized at least since the time of Plato, and which-it could be argued-have not been altered meaningfully since. Second, the study addresses the possibility that Eysenck, like Plato, Kant, Wundt, and others, either consciously or unconsciously fell back on what might be termed the Western Trifunctional schema of psychosocial order. The study concludes that Eysenck, from the beginning of his Galtonian training under Cyril Burt, saw himself as continuing an age-old tradition of dividing humanity into a triplicity based upon a subjective-objective axis of mental orientation (this binary leading directly to cognitive, conative, and vocational types that match the poles and midpoint of the axis). This triple division of society is shown to be based upon a trio of characteristic or ideal virtues or strengths that correspond to each of the three societal orders (Eysenck, 1947: 106).