What is laughter?

This study analyses the evolution of the perception of laughter across the three main frontiers of Western knowledge: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. A documentary analysis was employed, grounded in the references made by some of the foremost authors of each period. It is proposed that: In the Classical View, laughter is seen as an expression of human superiority over animals, but inferiority before the gods, and should be avoided by the wise people; In the Medieval View, laughter is seen as one of the many things of the Devil, opposing the will of God, and therefore should be avoided by people of faith; In the Modern View, laughter loses its previous chronic negativity with evolutionary theory and comes to be seen as merely one of the many innate characteristics of all human beings. However, amidst a multitude of explanations, and regardless of the field of knowledge, there seems to be a consensus regarding the study of laughter. From the past to the present, a significant portion of authors suggest that this phenomenon possesses a complex and enigmatic dimension that, to some extent, is untranslatable into words. What, then, is laughter? After more than two thousand years of explanations, the only absolute certainty we seem to have today about laughter is that we still do not have an absolute certainty about what laughter is.