Joyful laughter affirms, bitter laughter mourns. One says yes, the other no. Wittgenstein expressed it this way: The world of the happy is different from that of the unhappy. This also applies to their laughter. Ágnes Heller is the first to philosophically reflect on what is funny and why. She chooses film, theater, novels, jokes, and life itself as her stages. She reviews various theories of the comic and describes modern approaches: systematic, psychological, and existential. She concludes that ultimately it is always the abyss between our personal dispositions and our society that makes us laugh. Laughter and crying are the elemental responses to existence.