A philosopher goes to the housewares show at McCormick Place

“Beauty,” Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote, “is no quality of things themselves. It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”

Which might make me unqualified to contemplate the Inspired Home Show — the International Home + Housewares Show to those not yet adjusted to the new name, changed in 2022. Because my mind belongs to neither a buyer for discount stores, nor an importer/exporter, no anyone looking for items to fly off their shelves.

Instead I took a headful of airy metaphysics Monday to confront what the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls, with the lack of practical empathy that is the bane of those lost in the world of ideas, “the unproblematic being of the world of things.”

There’s nothing unproblematic about selling stuff, starting with the show, now in its 125th year, a sprawling affair occupying the better part of two large halls at McCormick Place.

Sprawling enough that I groped for some kind of organizing principle to decide what to focus on. I settled on the old standby, Plato’s four elements: fire, air, water and earth.

“That’s what we specialize in: cocktail smokers for the home bartender, all of them adding an aroma to, say, an old-fashioned or a margarita or a Negroni,” said Meredith McNamara, co-owner of Spirits with Smoke, applying a blowtorch flame to their “smoking saucer,” a crucible sitting atop a rocks glass. “We try to elevate the cocktails at home so you can have that restaurant experience but not spend $35 for a cocktail. It’s all about adding that extra flavor profile dimension to your cocktail.”

The show, which ran Sunday through Tuesday, always offers first looks at new products that may or may not become household fixtures. A dozen years ago I noticed something called the Dipr, a hook intended to facilitate lowering sandwich cookies into milk. I would not have predicted great things for the Dipr, but every year its display seems bigger, and this year is no exception.

The word “necessity” (anagkē) appears hundreds of times in Plato’s “Republic,” and indeed came to me often at the show, such as when contemplating the Nello Air Shower & Pet Drier, a pet-crate-sized box that blasts air at your pet.

“You take your dog out, gets a little sand on them, some dirt, you put them in there and it’ll have air circulating and takes it out,” said Jennifer Sierra, a PR associate for Cuckoo Electronics. “We’re a South Korean brand, mostly known for our rice cookers, and a lot of advanced technology, a lot of R & D used for rice cookers is used for all our products.”

She said the Air Shower retails for about $900.

Regarding the third Platonic element, the show was sodden with water bottles.

“Stainless steel, ceramic interior, so it can keep cold and hot,” said Zhizhong Hu, a senior product manager at Wuyi Soniu Houseware, showing off their NIU water bottle. “The water bottles feature a tea infuser, you can use, or not. You can put some fruit inside. It’s our new product.”

No one at the show manifested earth better than Emily Christopherson, a ceramicist living in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, making attractive hand-thrown cups, pots, butter spreaders and trays.

“An iron-rich stoneware and a red brick clay, from Standard Ceramics,” she said. “They have a supplier not too far from O’Hare Airport. I leave the exterior unglazed, so it’s the natural color and texture of the clay. I really like the material.”

Her work costs from $30 to $74 and are sold at the Cultural Center, and the Center of Order and Experimentation in West Town.

The show seems more subdued this year, but that’s nothing new.

“It gets quieter every year,” agreed Randy Lenz, with Marketing Concepts Northwest. “I’ve been here for 30 years. Smaller, quieter, but still productive, as long as buyers come and manufacturers come.” Organizers say this year’s show is comparable in size to last year’s.

Approaching the end of my fifth hour, Platonic ideals degraded into Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism, where the physicality of objects begins to seem absurd and disgusting.

Sartre believed in “escaping objects” to find “the world’s totality.” Unlike philosophers whose lives were hypocritical betrayals of their supposed ideals — I’m looking at you, Arthur Schopenhauer — Sartre lived his beliefs. This is how Bernard-Henry Lévy described Sartre’s home:

“No objects. Barely any furniture. A white Formica table. Ashtrays. An impression of great disorder and austerity. .. Like in a poor man’s place. A real poor man.”

In that light, I prefer possessions. Asubu’s Bestie Bottles are squat and colorful with animal heads, from cats to koalas. They were giving away samples, and I chose a yellow dog in honor of our dog, Kitty. It’s cute, and fits perfectly in my backpack.