I attended a serious philosophical lecture on this topic at the Univ. of Washington several years ago hoping the lecturer would salt his presentation with witticisms that would make me laugh. Sadly, it was very dry and mostly boring. If you want a philosophical analysis along the lines of that lecture, check this link out. Maybe that was what was desired when the participant from the last session suggested the topic, or maybe they wanted someone to tell a lot of jokes first so we could all enjoy them? Please come with your favorite joke book in hand, ready to share. Holiday or COVID jokes might be the order of the day.
The click-thru link above leads to an article that discusses the difference between laughter and humor, which I liked. Children telling knock-knock jokes and then laughing understand that the joke was funny enough to get people to laugh at least once. That repetition diminishes the likelihood that people will laugh again is not as easily understood. One writer distinguishes laughter and humor this way. "laughter results from a pleasant psychological shift, whereas, humor arises from a pleasant cognitive shift." This sort of mind-body duality appeals to the Descartes-ian in me. "I laugh, therefore I am!"
Here are books that use jokes and humor to teach the ideas of philosophy.
Plato and a Platypus walk into a bar...; Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, 2007. This book follows the standard Big Questions of Philosophy pattern of identifying the BQ, and then laying them out through the use of jokes and funny stories. There are 2 characters in the book so they can approximate a dialectic discussion of the topics, which helps to make it interesting. If find just reading through the jokes to be a lot of fun, honestly. I keep this book on the headboard of the bed for nighttime reading.
Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates; Using Philosophy (and jokes) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything In Between. Cathcart and Klein, 2009. This book uses the same format as the one above, but includes far more 1-panel comics as well. The comics are often in a Far Side sort of style, although I don't think there are any from that source. It is less a survey of BQ topics and more of an exploration of topics around death, the afterlife, immortality, Heaven, and so forth. In one cartoon an old man is lying in bed, his wife is holding his hand, and the caption are his likely last words, "I should have bought more crap!" My addition: said nobody, ever.
Adding to the list of sites to visit for additional info about the philosophy of humor are these:
BigThink.com: This sponsored site has a fairly good summary of the topic, and includes a video of a famous comic talking about how humor and laughter work, from his perspective.
PhilosophyNow.org: A short article that has some excellent examples of verbal humor, and links to related articles worth visiting.
PsychologyToday.com: There is a section here talking about the humor around the Corona Virus pandemic, if you can believe it, and some of the jokes are pretty funny. Also links to podcasts that relate to Philosophy of Humor, if you like podcasts.
There seems to be no end to on-line info on this topic. I hope people take the time to look at some of it, at least, to become grounded in the philosophic side of the topic. And to bring their favorite jokes to share.