New Desktop Thread!!!!

[Nostromo]

Perhaps, but at least Plato delivers.

Plato delivers the philosophical goods, I agree. One of the things I like about teaching is rereading the classics. Something I don't do while writing my PhD thesis: I mostly read contemporary philosophers and psychologists. More often than not, the classics are more interesting than contemporary philosophers. That said, the quest for certainty, the quest for infaillible knowledge is dead and buried.

Only if you hold to the modern fetish that the objects of knowledge are propositions, as the objects of belief are. Plato firmly rejects that hypothesis.

Then call me a fetishist then, because I don't want to see intellectual intuitions making a comeback. Assuming that's what you mean by "non-representational cognition of non-sensible, immaterial entities."

Name one.

My speciality isn't epistemology. You know all this better than me. Foundationalism is a classic answer. But radical foundationnalism (like Descartes') is not the way to go, since we can't put our hands on infaillible foundations for our knowledge. Fallibilist foundationalism is a lot more plausible, because you're not asking for infaillible foundations. Coherentism is also an answer. But pure coherentism is also problematic. I think coherentism needs to be supplemented by a touch of faillibilist foundationalism, or reliabilism or both.

For the rest, I'll take your word for it. I definitely have to reread the Theaetetus.

[Agathon]

Plato delivers the philosophical goods, I agree. One of the things I like about teaching is rereading the classics. Something I don't do while writing my PhD thesis: I mostly read contemporary philosophers and psychologists. More often than not, the classics are more interesting than contemporary philosophers. That said, the quest for certainty, the quest for infaillible knowledge is dead and buried.

Perhaps. I don't think most philosophers really understand Platonism though.

Then call me a fetishist then, because I don't want to see intellectual intuitions making a comeback. Assuming that's what you mean by "non-representational cognition of non-sensible, immaterial entities."

No. Intuitions are usually thought of as propositional. Plato thinks that knowledge requires an identity between knower and known. Hence knowledge is non-representational cognition of Forms.

It's easily the best answer ever given to the traditional problem of knowledge, and the most ignored.

My speciality isn't epistemology. You know all this better than me. Foundationalism is a classic answer. But radical foundationnalism (like Descartes') is not the way to go, since we can't put our hands on infaillible foundations for our knowledge. Fallibilist foundationalism is a lot more plausible, because you're not asking for infaillible foundations. Coherentism is also an answer. But pure coherentism is also problematic. I think coherentism needs to be supplemented by a touch of faillibilist foundationalism, or reliabilism or both.

The cogito is one example of infallible cognition, if it works. But that's about it. The Theaetetus to my mind gives all forms of foundationalism other than that a black eye, because they are propositional accounts of knowledge.

The problem with coherentism is that it makes all relations between the world and our beliefs causal, rather than justificatory. But it does have a point: only a belief could justify a belief – but the Theaetetus closes that possibility off.

Old books

[Provost Harrison]

Desktops people

[Agathon]

Where's yours then you Pommie bastard!!!!

[Provost Harrison]

It hasn't changed since the last one kiwi

[Agathon]

Well change it then!!!!

[St Leo]

MING! Ban them all.

Please?

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Agathon
Well change it then!!!!

OK

[Agathon]

No.

I bet you think you are clever though.

And Ming. Please ban St Leo for asking for others to be banned.

My latest: "Tiger Aqua Blue".

[Provost Harrison]

Nice wallpaper. Sh*t computer

[Agathon]

And yet the graphics on my old machine put yours to shame.

[Provost Harrison]

Going on a wallpaper I made in 30s?

I would sincerely doubt your old machine would be graphically better than mine

[Agathon]

Hell yeah. Windows won't have anything close to the Mac's Quartz Extreme Graphics until the next version of Windows comes out.

Why do you think all the mac shots here look so much better than the XP ones?

[Provost Harrison]

I have not noticed anything particularly interesting about your Mac screenshots...they just look weird in that slow, one buttoned-mouse Mac way

[Nostromo]

Why do you think all the mac shots here look so much better than the XP ones?

Frankly, I don't see why your beach desktop, for example, looks better than my beach desktop. And remember that mine has been resized from 1280x1024 to 800x600.