The chair...

[rrneck]

The Chair

An eccentric philosophy professor gave a one question final exam after a
semester dealing with a broad array of topics.

The class was already seated and ready to go when the professor picked
up his chair, plopped it on his desk and wrote on the board: "Using
everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not
exist."

Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled in furious fashion.
Some students wrote over 30 pages in one hour attempting to refute the
existence of the chair.
One member of the class, however, was up and finished in less than a
minute.

Weeks later when the grades were posted, the rest of the group wondered
how he could have gotten an A when he had barely written anything at all.

This is what he wrote: "What chair?"


Hat tip to member StuartG

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. heh - however

Just because one can not see the chair doesn't mean that the chair does not exist.

[rrneck]

2. If Helen Keller fell down in the woods would she make any noise?

Actually, I agree. It's pretty narcissistic to think things don't exist just because we don't (or won't) perceive them.

[ismnotwasm]

3. Woo boy

Now that a metaphysical can of worms, if to expand it to everything you can't see...

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

4. "What chair?" gets my vote for a few reasons:

1 It makes the point that proving the existence of the chair is the task of the person asserting its existence.
2 Since it is impossible to prove a negative, that logical pitfall is avoided.
3 Further, denying the existence of that which doesn't exist, is redundant and illogical.
4 Asking "What chair?" is not strictly a denial.
5 Asking "What chair?" is elegantly brief.

[rrneck]

5. That all makes sense

especially #1.

And yet, proving the existence of something as ubiquitous as a chair, in a place where people are being trained to consider the ramifications of such things, simply asking "What chair?" seems too clever by half.

Years ago there was a local celebrity in Memphis who called himself "Prince Mongo". He was featured on the first reality show Real People. At one point he stated plainly that he could become invisible whenever he wanted to. Sarah Purcell said, "Then do it." He replied, "I don't want to."

It seems to me that not acknowledging that chair is the same thing. While clever and technically correct, it flies in the face of what the class is all about. It seems to me to be a sort of flight into ideology. I don't think I would want philosophical thinking to be reduced to such clever retreats into a description of one's own perceptions.

At some point, the rubber has to meet the road. One of the great failings of Post Modernism is a retreat into subjectivity at the expense of rational thought. We all have interior lives, but in the end we have to make something of them, even if it is thirty pages of trying to prove something that is obviously there does not exist.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

6. ...too clever???

Maybe, but having worked as a teacher, I would suggest that in such an exercise there would be a number of points that had been predetermined to be necessary in any essay response. If those were covered then, IMHO the daring in the "What chair?" response would inspire me to believe that not only was the writer knowledgeable enough but also certain enough of his/her argument to risk it.

As Tom Skerritt said in "Top Gun", "I like that in a pilot."

[rrneck]

7. Did you see

Educating Rita? I don't recall the exact dialogue, but at one point Micheal Caine (the teacher) asks Shirley McClaine (the student) in a quiz how she would produce some Checkov play. Her answer is a hurriedly scrawled, "Put it on the radio". He scolds her for the thoughtless answer and is chastised when she goes on to produce a quiet erudite support for it.

I've taught just a bit myself, and if a student wants to take that kind of attitude, they better be able to back it up. And in the case of the joke, they would have to prove they couldn't see the chair.

But I agree that any student willing to take that risk deserves a measure of latitude for creative thinking. One of the most time worn cliches in fine arts education is, "I see where you're going". You may have to have the right answer in mathematics, but potential is part of the grade in the fine arts. And chutzpah.

My own biases also inform my opinion as well obviously. I've known too many people who got into art because they thought they could bullshit their way through content. Art doesn't work like that. Hang a painting up and you're unzipping you fly to anybody who knows how to look at art. I sometimes wonder if some people get into philosophy for the same reason.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. No I haven't but...

...it sounds like I'd be interested. I'll have to check it out. (I may have seen it actually but I don't remember it.)

Regarding tests and essays: I see it as unfair as a teacher of a graded class (as opposed to pass/fail) to include fewer than 4 graded works and each work (test, paper, essay...) should have at least 15 questions or points composing the grade. In short, I am set against single question finals because they tend to require more subjectivity on the part of both teacher and student.

Having said all that, I see the question in this topic about the "chair" vs "what chair" as unreasonable since, by placing the chair on the desk, the chair is demonstrated as existing. To then require a proof contradicting the previous demonstration is completely illogical.

There are a variety of requirements and criteria which one can defined/developed as "chair" attributes. These can be verified by either testing, inspection, analysis or demonstration. A chair should be capable of accommodating the size and weight of an average adult. A chair should have weight...


I guess I'm a bit too analytical but since I have a bit of attitude about the test concept, the idea of the attitude filled answer/question just, for me, balances the scales. Personally, I highly doubt the validity of either the accounting of the story or the professionalism of the teacher.