Bergson comes to mind - the central cause of laughter is mechanism applied to life, and all comic effects are articulated around this cause by our imagination.
"The comic is strictly a human phenomenon. A landscape cannot be a source of laughter, and when humans make fun of animals, it is often because they recognize some human behaviour in them. Man is not only a being that can laugh, but also a being that is a source of laughter."
"Laughter requires an indifference, a detachment from sensibility and emotion: it is more difficult to laugh when one is fully aware of the seriousness of a situation."
"It is difficult to laugh alone, it is easier to laugh collectively. One who is excluded from a group of people does not laugh with them, there is often a complicity in laughter. Thus the comic is not a mere pleasure of the intellect, it is a human and social activity, it has a social meaning."
"Because the mind is flexible, always in activity, we tend to attribute these qualities to the body too, ignoring its materiality. But when we are fully aware that the body is a weigh, a burden for the soul, the situation is comic. We laugh every time somebody looks like a material thing, every time we are under the impression that someone is a thing."
"The comic is strictly a human phenomenon. A landscape cannot be a source of laughter, and when humans make fun of animals, it is often because they recognize some human behaviour in them. Man is not only a being that can laugh, but also a being that is a source of laughter."
"Laughter requires an indifference, a detachment from sensibility and emotion: it is more difficult to laugh when one is fully aware of the seriousness of a situation."
"It is difficult to laugh alone, it is easier to laugh collectively. One who is excluded from a group of people does not laugh with them, there is often a complicity in laughter. Thus the comic is not a mere pleasure of the intellect, it is a human and social activity, it has a social meaning."
"Because the mind is flexible, always in activity, we tend to attribute these qualities to the body too, ignoring its materiality. But when we are fully aware that the body is a weigh, a burden for the soul, the situation is comic. We laugh every time somebody looks like a material thing, every time we are under the impression that someone is a thing."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughter_%28Bergson_book%29