Humor theory is generally portrayed as a continuous string of thought from classical forms of superiority and play theories to contemporary relief and incongruity theories. However, there is a major shift that occurred at the turn of the twentieth century as a result of the so-called linguistic turn in philosophy. As a result, what may be seen as “the problem of humor” is completely recast. For those before the twentieth century, the question was why an application of reason not designed to find truth would seem desirable. But once philosophy embraced the value of linguistic riddles, the early concern vanished and was replaced with more methodological concerns.