A Revelation in Windsor Philosophy

I can only read a few pages of "Beyond Good & Evil" by Nietzsche before I get caught up in how he compacted so much information into a single paragraph. Nietzsche was a master of philology, and his prose demonstrated this with pleasure. I began to think of the Windsor chair in the way I look at philosophy.

As I see philosophy, there's a surface (the chair's form) that hides the structure (joinery), each paragraph must be analyzed to understand the true meaning. The Windsor, and all its forms, are steeped in a rich history that dates back numerous centuries.

My research into specific joinery of the Windsor.

From this week's research I made a startling discovery about joinery, in an article by Christopher Schwarz titled "Tapered vs. Cylindrical Tenons". The original joinery of tapered mortise and tenons, used in Windsor chair legs, was cast aside because of the industrial revolution, factories found it far more simple, and cheaper, to create the tooling for parallel mortise and tenon joints than tapered.

The earliest known mention of a “Windsor” was in the early 18th century. That’s just the name, the form goes back even further. Welsh stick chairs are, perhaps, the original form of ‘Windsor’ that can be dated back to the 12th century. Chairs, and other furniture, were important artifacts to hand down through generations. Before mass manufacturing each piece was constructed from necessity. The strongest possible joinery was used to ensure longevity.

Which brings me to the philosophy of eternity, and living forever, it merges well with the Windsor chair, the chair has the potential to outlive its owners and sometimes ideas and people's identities can outlive their own physical forms. I read philosophy as a guide, an anchor for life’s chaotic turns. In the future I hope that someone will look to me as someone to be admired. The goal is to become greater than the person I hold as the ideal. Longevity, living forever, eternity in furniture and philosophy. It is the durability of furniture, or my individuality, that could transcend generations. If established/constructed correctly my chairs and myself will outlast centuries.

It is not one specific teaching of philosophy that I am looking to study, I believe just reading anything I can will help to refine my character. My curiosity of identity and how it lives for centuries is fueled from the people that I admire. Philosophy isn't something I can explain well, it's something I do. But maybe there's some meaning within the Windsor that I can find an answer.

Old Objective: A journey into the heart of the Windsor requires a look into what it means for anything to survive centuries without losing momentum. How someone can replicate the Windsor's physical values and principles into one's life metaphysically.

New Objective: How can anything eternalize its identity for future generations to admire?

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Works Cited

• Dalati, Sammy. “Curious Objects: Secret History of a Windsor Chair.” The Magazine.      Antiques, 5 Jan. 2018, themagazineantiques.com/article/secret-history-of-the-windsor-chair/.

• Kaufmann, Walter Arnold, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. Vintage Books, 2011.

• Parrott, Robert. Observations on the Earliest Known English Windsor Chairs.

• Rendi, James. “Why Handcrafted.” Windsor Chair Resources-About/Contact, www.windsorchairresources.com/rendi.html.

• Schwarz, Christopher. “Tapered vs. Cylindrical Tenons.” Popular Woodworking Magazine, Popular Woodworking Magazine, 21 June 2018, www.popularwoodworking.com/woodworking-blogs/tapered-vs-cylindrical-tenons/.

• “The Windsor Chair (Full Article).” Regional Furniture Society, 13 Nov. 2016, regionalfurnituresociety.org/about-the-rfs/online-articles/the-windsor-chair/the-windsor-chair-full-article/.