Philosophy of Tables and Chairs

In a rather bland philosophy book I was reading the other day, there was a curious statement about philosophers and their fascination with contemplating tables and chairs. It was meant as a joke, yet it holds much truth. Many of the greatest philosophers it seems have spent much time and reasoned a great deal on these everyday items, most likely because they were sitting in their chairs, at their table and didn’t have anything else to write about. Despite all that has been said by the hundreds of great minds over history, there is still much unanswered about these common objects. In fact, I remember many debates in the few philosophy units I took at university, centred on a table or chair (and I don’t mean we were standing on the desk arguing). And now on to join the tradition in pondering the table on which my computer sits and the object on which I am currently seated that I commonly call a chair.

Tables and chairs are material objects, they exist in space and time; they have a physical existence in what is called the real world. Like most objects, tables and chairs are classed according to their similarities; an actual table or chair in physical reality is an instance of that class (to take an analogy from computer programming). I can never be absolutely certain that this particular organisation of wood before me is actually a table, but I infer that it is from my memories of previous table references. A material object exists in an environment and is usually only able to survive and continue its existence in a certain environment. Tables and chairs sustain their existence by possessing certain characteristics or performing certain functions. A chair provides a seat, a table provides a surface for placing things on. Those that do not possess the right characteristics, either from bad workmanship or design, do not survive long in the world and certainly their design is not copied and perpetuated. Only the best tables and chairs continue their sustained existence in society. As it is with tables and chairs, so it is with many other things (possible all physical objects).

That which I call a chair, another may call something different and may see it as an object of a completely different function. It is also possible for me to use a chair as a table; what do I call it then? If I use a rock to put food on and eat using the surface of the rock, I am using the rock as a table. Then is it a rock or is it a table? At what point does a table become a table? Can I ever be certain that this flat wooden object before me is a table? Some philosophers question the existence of everything and they try to explain existence from human perceptions. This makes it very hard to examine anything, because everything has to be proven into existence. Human perceptions also vary widely, depending on each individual’s brain architecture, or the varying amount of chemicals, naturally produced or otherwise, affecting the operation of thought.

Each table is different from the next, each chair in a set of chairs, no matter how alike they look, are all in some way dissimilar and individual. What connection is there between all these individual objects, which warrants them to be called by the same name? Is there a mysterious force behind all chairs and tables or within their structure, which makes them chairs or tables, an immaterial Form existing somewhere in Platonic heaven? Since the definition of a table or chair is relative, this cannot be the case. Since there is no absolute essence that all tables or chairs possess, their connection may be attributed to human perceptions and the way the human mind organises the world. Humanity is the only thing that binds tables to tables and chairs to chairs.

Leaving human perceptions aside, a chair is a chair is a chair, a collection of particles, an organisation of matter, a pattern. Why are tables and chairs here? They are lucky not to have to ponder that question.

Mon, Sep 1, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: philosophy