Thinking and the Art of Furniture

Abstract

This article argues that furniture has been a source of ontological curiosity and an object of epistemological significance for some of the most important and formative modern intellectual traditions. Drawing on J. J. Gibson’s theory of affordances, the article shows how furniture has afforded a variety of intellectual meanings and can be seen as something of a worldly context giving shape and sense to what many modern intellectuals have understood by “the world.” Drawing on analyses of the way in which modern empiricism, rationalism, experimental science, and contemporary discursive psychology have “wondered” about the nature and significance of furniture, the article suggests that these intellectual endeavors have taken furniture as the primary disavowed object of their inquiries, and in so doing they have been tacitly complicit in confining modern intellectual life to the indoor realm. The article also discusses the extent to which the increasingly technoscientific nature of contemporary furniture poses some profound—and possibly unanswerable—questions as to how the modern philosopher can make intellectual sense of this indoor world. The article goes on to argue that popular science and science fiction writing are superior to philosophy in this respect and can be usefully seen as potential heirs to the modern philosophical tradition, and that if philosophy is to remain interesting and relevant in the present time, it must return to its ancient “outdoor” peripatetic roots.