Francis Hutcheson, Pensieri sul riso e Osservazioni sulla Favola delle api

The Reflections Upon Laughter address some topics much debated during the eighteenth century (irony, humor, wit), considered by Francis Hutcheson not only in aesthetic terms, but also political, social, and even physiological, with reference to the eighteenth century theories concerning passions and emotions. In the Remarks Upon the Fable of the Bees Hutcheson takes up the defence of the moral system of Lord Shaftesbury, which had been the object of a ferocious critic by Bernard Mandeville.