The Chairness of a Chair

Have you ever been sitting in a class contemplating that which you are seated on? What gives this combination of wood, metal, and vinyl its chairness? What designates this particular composition of elements as a mechanism which operates qua chair? Is chairness defined in a substantive or functional manner? Shall we list the attributes of the common chair - legs, level surface, back - or does an object attain chair status based on a particular served function? When the problem of different languages is introduced, what becomes of our conceptualizations of the essence of chairness?

These seemingly meaningless ruminations may appear unfamiliar to many, but to those EMU students with either a philosophy minor or major, the previous paragraph represents a stream of reasoning already negotiated.

Of course, there are hundreds of reasons to study philosophy (not that there need be any beyond finally getting to the bottom of chairness). Besides gaining practical reasoning skills and a greater capacity to live in the world as independent rational thinkers, philosophy majors leave college with the priceless knowledge of how to impress members of the opposite (or same) sex at parties with esoteric sounding B.S.

Like other forms of B.S., esoteric B.S. can only go so far. One cannot live from the admiration of one relative stranger to the next. At some point, one will need to interact with family members and close friends who place little value in spending thousands of dollars in pursuit of an esoteric vocabulary. These are the ones who care little for the essence of everyday objects. Eventually every young philosophy student will be smitten by some dear soul who will not be amused by time consuming wonderings about a dog's capacity to grasp abstractions when Fido is peeing on the carpet and said philosopher is blankly staring into space.

Oh, the joys of philosophy; the pleasure of its study grows exponentially as one continues in its path…until the final semester has arrived. Then reality sets in; actually, the American reality sets in. Moneyed individuals do not care to employ young people who are highly trained independent thinkers. Capitalist types would rather hire someone who will accept their paycheck with pride and find a way to turn the boss's dollar into two.

If you think this is an overly cynical view I invite you to consider EMU. Faculty and staff who think independently and do justice are wonderful and everything but not enticing to today's high school senior. I imagine the best way to get and keep a job at EMU is to attract more students, so that our own capitalist types will smile and extend that contract for another three years. Sometimes independent thinking rocks the boat, which scares the consumer. That is the last thing we need at EMU.

All is not lost, philosophy student. We may not have jobs or money, but we will always be able to put on our blank stares and return to the beautiful task of contemplating what gives a four-legged wooden object its chairness.

Contact Danny at paul.yoder1@emu.edu