Originally Posted by punkworld

Philosophy in action...



Nope, he got an F. He didn't account for his own likely perception of the chair, his own likely hearing of the teacher talking to him, the teacher's likely perception of the chair, the relations of language and meaning between them. I could go on. He could have taken the skeptic route, putting all perception into reasonable doubt, but he would have needed to argue that point.

Furthermore, the teacher actually didn't ask for philosophy, she asked for sophistry (assuming she wasn't a dogmatic Academic skeptic), since she asked for arguments for arguments' sake, rather than a rigorous investigation of the world.

As you can see, philosophy is annoying ;)