the philosophy student and the chair story (creativity, quick-thinking, exams and tests, short answers to long questions) This is a widely circulated story from the early 2000s. It appeared online and in emails in many different versions. Please tell me if you know it to be earlier, and/or the origin. Ive refined the wording of the story as follows: A philosophy professor gave an unusual test to his class. He lifted his chair onto his desk and wrote on the board simply: Prove that this chair does not exist. The class set to work, composing long complex explanations - except one student, who took just thirty seconds to complete and hand in his paper, attracting surprised glances from his classmates and the professor. Some days later the class received their grades for the test. The student who took thirty seconds was judged the best. His answer was, What chair? The story is one of several similar urban myths which make fun of supposedly high-minded theorizing and adademia, in which an apparently very difficult or impossible question is defeated by a very simple quick clever answer. The story also inspired the fine philosophy student contribution to the Glass Half-Full/Empty Quotes Collection. Here are some other examples of funny legendary test questions and answers: Q - What do you think of this as a question? A - What do you think of this as an answer? Q - Why? A - Why not? Q - Why? A - Because. Q - Define courage. A - This. (or This is.) Q - Prove that this chair does not exist. A - This chair is actually a word on a board. The chair that exists is that one on the table. Q - Briefly explain what hard water is? A - Ice. (This one was real) Q - What do we call the science of classifying living things? A - Racism. (So was that) (Thanks for the suggestion, R Bubb)
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 05:14:37 +0000
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