I am not sure what to make of this.

Surely Nietzsche knew that Hesiod said:

The muses tell Hesiod that they speak lies like the truth.

(Theogony 27)

The suspicion is that in reporting what he claims the muses tell him he is lying. He is giving weight and authority to what he says by putting his words in the mouth of the muses.

I do not think he was fooling himself in claiming:

Not I! not I! but a God, through my instrumentality!

Where they pointed to the gods you point to Nietzsche. As if Nietzsche takes the place of the gods as the authority. It would seem that your frequent appeal to him to the exclusion of others is more like the appeal to monotheism than polytheism.

Now, of course, all of this can be regarded as a bit of rhetorical hyperbole.

... before Nietzsche: Dogmatic boring philosophy. — Vaskane

Did Nietzsche find Heraclitus dogmatic and boring? Or Montaigne?

Nietzsche said that Plato is boring, and at the same time that with regard to Plato he is a thorough skeptic. (TI,2) So what are we to make of this remark by one ironic skeptic about another ironic skeptic?

These remarks occur within the context of the art of writing. With regard to the art of writing and its counterpart the art of reading Nietzsche suggests, something important has been forgotten. Something known before Nietzsche :

Our highest insights must–and should–sound like follies and sometimes like crimes when
they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for
them. The difference between the exoteric and the esoteric, formerly known to
philosophers–among the Indians as among the Greeks, Persians, and Muslims, in short,
wherever one believed in an order of rank and not in equality and equal rights –….
[consists in this:] the exoteric approach sees things from below, the esoteric looks down
from above…. What serves the higher type of men as nourishment or delectation must
almost be poison for a very different and inferior type…. There are books that have
opposite values for soul and health, depending on whether the lower soul, the lower
vitality, or the higher and more vigorous ones turn to them; in the former case, these
books are dangerous and lead to crumbling and disintegration; in the latter, [they are]
heralds’ cries that call the bravest to their courage. Books for all the world are always
foul-smelling books.

Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 30

If one reads Plato, or any higher type, as one higher man reads another, then they will not find what they read boring. In the section "Reading and Writing" from Zarathustra Nietzsche says:

He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader.

Of course there is reason to assume it can help Biden. — Tzeentch

War is often divisive. Since Vietnam American wars have not united us. Just the opposite. One reason some cite for their support of Trump is that they think he is responsible for keeping us out of war.

I predict just before the presidential election Biden will declare war, possibly with Iran. It won't be pretty, but it will draw upon patriotism of the citizenry. It might work or it might not. Remember the disastrous departure from the now Taliban country.
— jgill

I thought this was unlikely, but after today.. — RogueAI

What tends to get obscured in such speculation is the question of motive. There is an important difference between declaring war in response to the actions of an Iranian backed militia or other group and declaring war as a means of uniting the country against a common enemy. It may be that the latter is a consequence of the former but that does not mean it would be correct to attribute it as the motivating reason for it.

Oh, look. — Tzeentch

Oh, look - "radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq", directed by and/or supporting the election of Biden, attacked and killed three American soldiers.

In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, Trump has single-handedly eliminated what up until that moment had been, according to the Cult of MAGA, an urgent crisis at the southern border. But miraculously it is now no longer an urgent problem in the face of a more pressing and serious
problem - thwarting bipartisan efforts until after the election or until Trump is given credit for his undisclosed "perfect (final) solution".

You have not answered my questions.

Here is another one: If the primary motivation is to eliminate Trump then why not simply eliminate him?

Are you claiming that if not for an election we would not go to war against Iran?
Is what Iran and its allies doing of no consequence?
This would only be a successful strategy if Congress approves the war. Does this mean that Congress wants to salvage his chances?
If this is a winning strategy wouldn't Trump also advocate for war?

I maintain, and have ever maintained, that I might, or might not be, Aristotle. — NotAristotle

Do you maintain that you might or might not be, NotAristotle? That you might is quite different from not being either Aristotle or NotAristotle. For in either of those cases you must be. If you take what I say as misanthropy not only must you not not be, you must be human (anthropos). Being neither this or that are you some third thing, the third man?

Aristotle: Yes, I thought you might say so, for if it were the same, then by investigating the form in the particulars I would be seeing outside of the cave, don't you think?
Plato: That sounds right to me. — NotAristotle

To investigate and to see the truth of what what is being investigated are not the same. An inquiry into Forms does not yield knowledge of them. If it did then Socrates' wisdom would not be knowledge of his ignorance.

Socrates: ... the Form of greatness is supremely great — NotAristotle

Fooloso4: Whoever you are, you are not Socrates. The Forms, as you say, are each one. The Form Great is not the greatest of the many things that are great. And, of course, NotAristotle is not Aristotle. Aristotle would recognize this as a version of the Third Man argument. The Form man is not a man. This Plato is not the supremely great Plato who would not agree that the Form Greatness is the greatest or the Form Man is the manliest. In his Parmenides we also find a rejection of the Third Man.

Aristotle:

We are all stuck in the cave. We cannot escape, but some can be turned around to see the light of the cave fire and what the shadows are images of.

One must be of good humor to accept that even then most will still not understand what those things are that they shadows are images of. Further, they are not able to identify who the makers of these images are. They do not see that you too are a puppet maker, a maker of images, an opinion maker, a poet. Some take the opinions you present as something more. They mistakenly believe that being a philosopher means taking these opinions as the truth. They do not know that to think philosophically is to think dialectically. To question rigorously rather than accept and repeat as the truth.

Although our methods are somewhat different we both in our own way are examiners of opinion. As cave dwellers the best we can do is accept those opinions we find or make that seem to us best, while remaining open to revision when it seems reasonable to do so.

We have a fundamental disagreement regarding how to interpret the dialogue. I will leave it there.

,... saying "absolute nothingness is impossible, therefore something existing is a metaphysical/logical necessity." — Ø implies everything

Saying absolute nothingness is impossible is saying something. It does not follow from saying something that something is a metaphysical necessity. In saying "nothing" you are saying something. This is a logical but not a metaphysical necessity.

I responded to this by claiming that logic allows us to comprehend the implications (and really, lack thereof) of absolute nothingness. — Ø implies everything

The problem is that if logic is about something then it cannot be about nothing. There are no implications of absolute nothingness. Logical implications are about something. Nothing follows logically or in reality as we know it from nothing.

You have gotten way off topic.

Ravens are intelligent birds but they do not need nuts to survive. They do not need logic to eat. A newborn baby latches. It does not reason that by doing this it is likely that whatever it is that they are sucking on will have milk in it.

As I said, you do not at all understand the tuning of a stringed instrument. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, you did say that. But it is not true. I have played string instruments for most of my life. I have put in the time to study music theory and harmony. I have also set-up guitars and have the specialized tools to do so. Including cutting nuts, adjusting neck relief, and setting intonation I also play upright bass which does not have frets. Here playing in tune requires more precision to get the length of the stopped string right.

The notes which the instrument makes must be in tune relative to each other, — Metaphysician Undercover

Right. This is what I said near the beginning of this exchange:

The harmony is not what is played on the lyre it is the condition of the lyre, the proper tension of the strings in ratio to each other that allow it to play in harmony. — Fooloso4

And this:

In the case of a lyre it is the ratio of frequencies of the vibrating strings. — Fooloso4

So long as all the strings are properly tensioned in relation to each other the instrument will produce harmony, and can be said to be in tune. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right again. But those ratios existed prior to the instrument being in tune. The harmony produced is
something that had been produced countless times before by various instruments. The harmony exists prior to this instrument.

This is why your interpretation of "attunement", or "the tuning of a lyre" as a standard which needs to be adhered to when tuning a lyre, is simply incorrect. — Metaphysician Undercover

I used the example of standard tuning so an not to confuse you any more than you already were. But you have come around. What must be adhered to is the ratio of frequencies from one string to another. The ratio of frequencies, exists independently and prior to the instrument. Both standard and non-standard tuning must adhere to those preexisting ratios.

Again, here is the argument:

The tuning of a lyre exists apart from and prior to any particular lyre. The tuning, the harmony, is an arrangement of frequencies that exists even when a particular lyre is not in tune. Although the tuning of a particular lyre does not endure once that lyre is destroyed, it does not follow that the attunement, the Harmony, is destroyed. — Fooloso4

It says nothing about adhering to standard tuning. What is at issue is the preexistence of harmony. This harmony exists whether the instrument is in standard or alternative tuning.

Socrates' arguments are directed against "the soul is an attunement", by the description of "attunement" presented in the text — Metaphysician Undercover

Here again is Simmias' description:

... the attunement is indeed an unseen, non-physical, entirely beautiful and divine element in the tuned lyre, while the lyre itself and its strings are, by contrast, physical objects, with physical form

(85e-86a)

The attunement is not the tuning of the lyre. It is not the tightening and loosening of the strings. For that is physical. It is something that is present when the lyre is in tune. But, as Socrates points out, a man differs from a lyre. To take the analogy further is misleading.

It continues:

He would claim, rather, that the attunement itself must somehow still exist, and the wood and strings must rot away first before anything happens to that. And in fact, Socrates, I think you yourself are aware that this is the sort of thing we actually take the soul to be. It is as if our body is tempered and held together by hot and cold, dry and moist, and the like, and that our soul is a blend and attunement of these very elements once they are properly mixed with one another in a measured way.

(86b-86d)

The attunement of the human body is the proper mix and measure, the harmony of its parts.

You think that Plato does not actually refute the Pythagorean theory that the soul is a type of harmony because he makes a strawman of "harmony", and refutes that instead. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. I think he corrects certain mistakes as to what it means for the soul to be an attunement, for the body to be in harmony.

This is how Socrates concludes his objections:

“Then, my excellent friend, it is not at all appropriate for us to state that soul is an attunement, for it seems we would be disagreeing with the divine poet Homer and with ourselves.” (94e-95a)

Why would disagreement with "the divine poet Homer" be decisive? Are we to take the side of the poets in the "ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry"? (Republic 607b) Socrates defense is a defense of Homer and the beliefs of the city educated by him. An education in shadows. (Republic 514a - 515c)

The weaknesses of Socrates' arguments in defense of a separate soul that enters and leaves the body are the weaknesses of the traditional beliefs of the city of Athens and others about the soul as taught by Homer. But it is not the belief described by Simmias of Thebes.

Our minds require a kind of isomorphism to reality in order to allow for logic, which is necessary for survival. — Ø implies everything

If logic is necessary for survival then other animals require it as well.

Isomorphism to reality is not necessary for survival either. We respond to what we see and hear, but this need not be what we think it is in order to pursue or avoid it. By the time we determine that it is not a snake and not a stick it may be too late.

Absolute nothingness is most definitely impossible — Ø implies everything

Absolute nothingness is impossible for us to comprehend. This marks a limit to human understanding. That there always was and always will be something is not something that we can know.

Can something come from nothing? We cannot understand how that could be, but what can happen is not dependent on our understanding or lack of understanding.

And, of course, this tells us nothing about nothing.

If you took the time to read what I said, and don't worry you would still have plenty of time left to spew, you would see that I am not talking about one exchange with one member.

But there is no doubt that this will fall on deaf ears. You like to hear yourself talk too much to hear anything else.

I'll leave you to it.

Your participation here follows a pattern we have seen before. An inordinate number of vague and insubstantial low quality contentious posts critical of almost everything including other members in the short period of time you have been here. Most flame out after shooting their wad and leaving a mess.

Dial it back, "mate".

What I pointed to was Socrates' description of "harmony", to show you that it is inconsistent with your description of "attunement". By Socrates' description, "harmony" is the last composed and first destroyed. You had said attunement is prior to any particular instrument. — Metaphysician Undercover

A human being is not a lyre.

I was not talking about any "consequences", only showing the discrepancy between Socrates' description of "harmony, or "attunement", and your interpretation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Socrates is not describing "harmony". He is arguing that:

... your attunement and what you are comparing it to are not really alike

This is true in so far as a human being, unlike a lyre, is not crafted, strung up, and tuned. But the pitches to which a lyre is tuned do not come into existence after the lyre is made. The musical scale to which the lyre is tuned exists before the lyre that is being tuned.

What Socrates does not say, and what you cannot see, is that the attunement of a lyre is like a preexisting soul. Musical harmony exists prior to the lyre.

We might call it some sort of instructions for tuning a lyre, but "the tuning of a lyre" is the act of actually putting the instrument in tune. — Metaphysician Undercover

And by putting it is tune you are matching the frequencies of the strings to the preexisting musical scale.

The tuned lyre has properly tensioned strings according to the size of the strings. — Metaphysician Undercover

The size of the string determines how tight it must be tensioned to produce a desired pitch, but it is the pitch and not the size of the string that determines whether or not the lyre is in tune. Those pitches are not determined by the lyre.

A poorly tuned instrument does not have "harmony", or "attunement". — Metaphysician Undercover

The harmony of an instrument is always imperfect. Dissonance is not eliminated. There is always some degree of dissonance. Compromises must be made to compensate. It is called "musical temperament"

But the soul is a matter of either/or. — Metaphysician Undercover

If the soul is the harmony of the body it is not either/or.

To make "harmony" compatible with "soul" we have to make it a matter of either/or, because that's the way soul is, either a body has a soul or it does not. — Metaphysician Undercover

This begs the question of what the soul is.

You believe that you have found the answer to that question in the pages of the Phaedo. I am in agreement with those scholars who recognize that the question is not answered. The dialogue ends in aporia.

Then we have Socrates' description at 92c ... — Metaphysician Undercover

You skip over the first part:

Now are you aware,” he said, “that these are the consequences of what you propose whenever you assert that the soul exists before it enters the form and body of a human being, and on the other hand, that it is constituted from elements that do not yet exist?

These consequences do not follow if one does not assert that the soul exists before in enters the body. Simmias' argument is a refutation of this assertion, but poor Simmias has become as confused as you are.

But "the tuning of a lyre" is the tuning of a lyre, and that means that a particular lyre is being tuned. — Metaphysician Undercover

The tuning of a lyre, that is the frequencies to which a lyre is tuned, and the process of tuning a lyre are not the same. A particular lyre is tuned to those frequency ratios which exist prior to it. A lyre is well tuned when it comes close to matching those frequencies and poorly tuned the more it deviates.

First, in Simmias' statement, the harmony or attunement is something which exists "in the attuned lyre", it is not a separate principle by which the lyre is tuned. — Metaphysician Undercover

Simmias' first statement is:

Someone might propose the very same argument in relation to attunement, and a lyre, and its strings, saying that the attunement is indeed an unseen, non-physical, entirely beautiful and divine element in the tuned lyre, while the lyre itself and its strings are, by contrast, physical objects, with physical form.

The relation is between attunement and a lyre. A relation of the one to the other. The tuned lyre is one in which the proper ratio of frequencies is achieved.

Put this into context though. To improve would be to bring harmony from dissonance. This very clearly indicates bringing harmony into existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

To improve would be to lessen dissonance. Again, it is a matter of degree not either or. Analogously, the circles we find in the world are not perfect circles, but they are circles nonetheless.

To improve an evil person is not to bring harmony to dissonance, because that would imply that the evil person, being dissonant, does not even have a soul. — Metaphysician Undercover

One soul might be more in tune than another but both a well tuned and poorly tuned soul is still a soul.

You've said already that the "attunement" in your peculiar interpretation exists prior to the instrument, as the set of principles by which the instrument might be tuned. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not a set of principles, it is a ratio of parts. In the case of a lyre it is the ratio of frequencies of the vibrating strings. Those ratios exist prior to the lyre. They are mathematical relations and can be heard. It is this ability to hear them that allows someone to tune a lyre.

Now, you cannot turn around and say that the attunement is "the arrangement and tension of the parts of the body", and pretend to be consistent. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is entirely consistent. In the case of the lyre it is the arrangement and tension of the strings. In the case of the human body it is the arrangement and tension of its parts. In Simmias' words:

It is as if our body is tempered and held together by hot and cold, dry and moist, and the like, and that our soul is a blend and attunement of these very elements once they are properly mixed with one another in a measured way.

(86b-c)

That arrangement and tension is particular to the individual body, and is therefore posterior to the existence of the body. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is not as if the human body comes into existence and is then arranged and tensioned. In this way it is not like a lyre. As I said in a prior post, this is where the analogy with the lyre breaks down.

It cannot be more or less harmonized, or in any way dissonant or else it would not be a soul. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is Socrates objection. You take it to be decisive, but it is not. The fact is, an instrument can be more or less harmonized, more or less in tune. It is a matter of degree and falls short of perfect harmony. There is an old saying about tuning a guitar: "Close enough for rock and roll".

Again, you are equivocating with "attunement". By what you said at the beginning of the post, "The tuning of a lyre exists apart from and prior to any particular lyre", the attunement is not "the condition of the instrument". — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not equivocating. What is confusing you is that you are conflating the process of tuning with the standard by which the instrument is tuned. The tuning of a lyre is that set of frequencies that determine that some particular lyre is in tune. The lyre is tuned, the strings tightened and loosened, in order to come into accord with those established frequencies, that is, the tuning of a lyre.

Where does it say that the spirited part is the medium between body and soul?
— Fooloso4

Read "The Republic" please. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you took your own advice you would know that the tripartite soul is not divided in this way. Spiritedness is said to be the middle part of the soul, not something between the soul and the body.

Hmm, the final part of the post directly contradicts the beginning of your post. — Metaphysician Undercover

It does not. It is two sides of the same coin. What is at issue is the question of whether the soul is an attunement. The question cannot be addressed without establishing on the one side what an attunement is and on the other the body it is said to be an attunement of.

So if the soul is supposed to be a harmony, or attunement, the tensions of the bodily elements must exist in this specific way in order for that body to be endowed with "a soul"? — Metaphysician Undercover

The body is not endowed with a soul. The soul is, according to the argument, just that specific way in which the elements of the body are arranged, combine and function.

You're busy dealing with the shadow of the forms. — dani

He might say: Yes, I've been in your Academy for 20 years. I know this bit of philosophical poetry quite well. I am busy now creating my own. Better for us to be puppet-masters.

Clearly, the "harmony", or what you are calling "attunement" is something distinct from the material instrument itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

Attunement is how Horan translates it. It is how Sedley and Long translate it. It is how Brann translates it. It is how many others translate it as well. The Greek term is ἁρμονία (harmonia) and is transliterated as harmony.

As I said above:

The tuning of a lyre exists apart from and prior to any particular lyre. The tuning, the harmony, is an arrangement of frequencies that exists even when a particular lyre is not in tune. Although the tuning of a particular lyre does not endure once that lyre is destroyed, it does not follow that the attunement, the Harmony, is destroyed. — Fooloso4

Your use of "attunement" only creates ambiguity between "attunement" as the general principles by which an instrument is tuned, and "attunement" as a specific condition of a particular instrument. — Metaphysician Undercover

A specific instrument is in tune when the tension of the strings correspond to a ratio of frequencies that are not dependent on that instrument .

OK, so you dismiss the first of the three arguments, because you do not believe in the theory of recollection. — Metaphysician Undercover

The myth of recollection is fraught with problems. If we start with the premise that knowledge is recollection then there would never be a time when knowledge was learned. But it cannot be recollected if it had not at some time first been learned.

In the Phaedo the soul might in the next life be that of an ass. In that case an ass has the same innate knowledge as a man. While I cannot accept this, it does seem that some men seem to possess no more knowledge than as ass.

The very fact which you cite, that a person can act to improve one's health, or improve the attunement, demonstrates that the attunement is posterior to the physical body. — Metaphysician Undercover

To improve does not mean to bring into existence. One cannot improve something that does not exist.

First, do you recognize that it is the bodily instrument which is either well tuned or poorly tuned? Therefore you cannot say "both a well tuned and poorly tuned soul is still a soul" to be consistent with the argument, because the body is analogous to the instrument, and is what is tuned; it is not the soul which is tuned. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, it is not the soul which is tuned. The soul is the attunement, the arrangement and tension of the parts of the body, not what is tuned.

Next, do you agree that if the instrument is not well tuned there will be some degree of dissonance, and that dissonance is inconsistent with harmony? — Metaphysician Undercover

Heraclitus says:

Men do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tension, like that of the bow and the lyre.

(Fragment 51)

And, since there is a multitude of strings, some may be in harmony and others dissonant. — Metaphysician Undercover

When the instrument is in tune the strings are in harmony to each other.

But "soul" by the theory, can only be harmony, it cannot be dissonance. — Metaphysician Undercover

The more harmonized the soul the less its dissonance. A soul that is in poor health, a soul with a great deal of dissonance, is still a soul.

The premise "the soul rules" is proposed as a true proposition, validated by the evidence explained. And, it is specifically proposed as inconsistent with "the soul is a harmony". There is nothing deliberately misleading here. — Metaphysician Undercover

A soul that is well attuned, a soul that is in harmony and balance, rules well. One that is in discord does not. Harmonized means that there is not one element of the attunement that rules.

The "harmony", or what you call the "attunement", is explicitly stated as something distinct from the instrument. — Metaphysician Undercover

The attunement is the condition of the instrument. Your being in good or bad health is not something distinct from you, but you are not the condition you are in.

The "spirited part" is the third part, the medium between body and mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

Where does it say that the spirited part is the medium between body and soul?

Either the the source is the mind, if the soul is healthy, or the body is the source if the mind is ill. — Metaphysician Undercover

The source of Odysseus' anger is not his body. He is angry at the suitors but controls himself.

Sometimes it [the soul] chastises them more severely with painful processes based upon gymnastics, or medicine, sometimes more gently by threatening and admonishing, talking to the desires, passions and fears as though they constituted a separate entity.

It treats them as though they are constituted by a separate entity, but they are not.

you claim that the "attunement" is a part of the body of the instrument. — Metaphysician Undercover

What I claim is that the attunement is not apart from the body, not that it is a part of the body. It is not some part in addition to the parts.

My apologies for the continued derailment, but since MU is insistent and refuses to move this to another thread I will respond here.

The three arguments found at 92-94 provide a very good refutation of the theory of 'the soul as a harmony'. — Metaphysician Undercover

I do not think that the argument that begins:

… our soul is somewhere else earlier, before she is bound within the body.

(92a)

and goes on to ask:

But see which of the two arguments you prefer - that learning is recollection or soul a tuning.

(92c)

provides the foundation for "a very good refutation".

But you want to ignore this:

Regardless of what you think abut Socrates' arguments for the immortality of the soul — Metaphysician Undercover

and evaluate the arguments by ignoring the premise on which they rest.

The first refutation:

“So it is natural for an attunement not to lead the elements it is composed of, but to follow them.” (93a)

An attunement does not lead or follow the elements. The attunement is the condition of those elements. For the lyre this means the proper tension of the strings. For a person this means being healthy. The limits of the analogy are obvious, a lyre cannot tune itself. But we can act to maintain or improve our mental and physical health.

Socrates then resorts to a bit of sophistry:

“Now does this also apply to the soul so that, however slightly, one soul is more what it is than another? Is it more and to a greater extent, or less and to a lesser extent, a soul?”

(93b)

A lesser attunement is still an attunement. One soul might be more in tune than another but both a well tuned and poorly tuned soul is still a soul.

“Now, what will any of those who assert that the soul is an attunement say that these things, virtue and the vice, in our souls are?

(93c)

They are like health and sickness, well tuned or poorly tuned, and in harmony or out of harmony.

And, being neither more nor less an attunement, it is neither more nor less attuned. Is this the case?

(93d)

No, that is not the case. It is well tuned or poorly tuned, and this allows for degrees.

What about this?” he asked. “Of all the elements in a person, is there anything else that rules, according to you, except soul, especially if it also possesses understanding?

(94b)

This is deliberately misleading. On the premise that the soul is an attunement then it is not one element of the attunement that rules, but rather the relation between those elements, the ratio and harmony of those elements that rules. When the person is well tuned, balanced and in harmony, he or she will rule themselves well, and if not then poorly.

Now, do you think he [Homer] wrote this in the belief that soul is an attunement, the sort of thing which is led by the affections of the body, rather than leading them and dominating them, as it is a far more divine entity than any attunement?

(94e)

This begs the question. Socrates treats the soul and body as two separate and different things, the very thing the attunement argument denies. The passage from Homer is about Odysseus controlling his anger. Where is anger located within this separation? Is it an affection of the body or the soul? According to the division set in the Republic the source is the spirited part of the soul not the body.
If Odysseus is his soul then the example is not about being led by the affections of the body.

The arguments fail. In the middle of them, and in fact at the numerical center or heart of the dialogue Socrates raises the problem of misologic, that is, a hatred of reasoned argument that arises from an excessive love and unreasonable expectation of what reason can accomplish (89d). This is prefaced by Echecrates:

What argument shall we ever trust now?

(88d)

Earlier Socrates warned:

Certainly, in many ways it’s still open to suspicions and counterattacks - if, that is, somebody’s going to go through it sufficiently.

(84c)

Certainly, when one goes through the arguments sufficiently, it becomes clear why we should not accept them.

Your quoted passages in the "short answer" are all before 92 in the text, — Metaphysician Undercover

This is where it begins. Reading Plato as if the dialogues are reasoned arguments surrounded by extraneous filler is a mistake. Most recent scholars have come to this conclusion.

Once again:

If you wish to pursue this further please reopen that thread or begin a new one. — Fooloso4

But you do have me about right, in that I am looking for a philosophy that will sustain a view of psyche and consciousness and personal identity that at least leans somewhat in the direction of geist, because the individualism of today feels immiserating and false. — unenlightened

I am suspicious of the idea that world history culminated with and through Hegel.

Please don't critique Hegel on the basis of my student beginner's crib-sheet. — unenlightened

I have struggled with Hegel over the years. Some years ago I participated in this thread.

My intention was not to argue but rather to pose what I take to be a guiding question. I have not made up my mind. Or should I say, it has not been made up for me?

The cunning of geist is that the mind/spirit of the age will use what you think of as your mind for its own grander purposes without you necessarily being aware of it or of its purposes. — unenlightened

I have not listened to the podcast, but based on what is said here, rather than putting the question of mind into question it sounds as if the question has been answered in favor of a universal mind with its own purposes. Accordingly, and I use the religious terminology intentionally, Hegel is the prophet of Geist.

This raises the question of the relationship between his writing as a reflection of or a response to the zeitgeist. Of whether what we read reflects Hegel's own mind, his own thinking as opposed to what he he needs to say given the beliefs and thinking of others.

As I read him, time is the realization, the development and working out of eternity. The completion of the circle - from eternity to time to the self-knowledge of being/eternity through its becoming/time.

But there's always room for diverse views. It creates dynamism in discussions. — frank

Yes, it does. But out of respect for your present thread on physicalism I am trying to not veer too far off topic with a discussion of Phaedo and the problem of interpreting Plato in this thread.

Can you show me the reasons given by Plato, to doubt the arguments presented by Socrates, as paraphrased above. — Metaphysician Undercover

Short answer begins here

A more adequate long answer here

It is clear from that thread that you disagree with my interpretation. If you wish to pursue this further please reopen that thread or begin a new one.

.

Plato has Socrates argue against the analogy in the Phaedo. — Count Timothy von Icarus

In order not to get too far off topic I will only say that Plato also gives us reason to doubt the argument provided.

It might help to back up a bit to see what is at issue. Socrates defines death:

“ 'And that it is nothing but the separation of the soul from the body? And that being dead is this: the body's having come to be apart, separated from the soul, alone by Itself, and the soul's being apart, alone by itself, separated from the body? Death can't be anything else but that, can it?'”

(64c)

The framing of the problem is the problem. Body and soul are treated as if they are two things, with the former dependent on the latter. The attunement argument calls this distinction into question. The cause of life is not the soul. The cause of death is not its separation from the body. The soul is not some separate thing acting on the body, but rather a condition of the body.

I don't see in what way a harmony played on a lyre could be said to cause the lyre to change. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A lyre that is not in tune cannot play a tune in tune. The harmony is not what is played on the lyre it is the condition of the lyre, the proper tension of the strings in ratio to each other that allow it to play in harmony. A body that is not in tune cannot function properly. When it is far enough out of tune it cannot function at all.

But I was speaking mainly in reference to his third argument, that the mind appears to control the body (at least to some extent), while a harmony can't control a lyre. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Socrates final argument for rejecting the soul as an attunement is not an argument based on reason.
He uses Homer’s authority in support of his argument against attunement on the grounds that the soul controls or rules over the body. But the passage cited (Odyssey XX 17-18) is not a case of the soul controlling the body, but of the soul controlling its own anger. It is not a matter of one thing, a soul, acting on another, a body, but of one thing, self,control, a man directing his action toward himself.

For Platonists it could be.

It should be kept in mind that Socrates, as he is about to die, is trying to convince his friends not to fear or despair death. It is significant that he does not avail himself of an argument used in the Apology - that death is like a endless dreamless sleep or annihilation. Here he argues that a good life will lead to a good death. The problem is that if the soul is the harmony of the body then the destruction of the body is the destruction of the soul. This I think is the main reason he rejects it.

For an in depth discussion of this and related issues see my threat on the Phaedo.

Socrates argues that the soul cannot be an attunement if the tuning existed prior to what is tuned. But there is an argument that Socrates neglects to pursue. The tuning of a lyre exists apart from and prior to any particular lyre. The tuning, the harmony, is an arrangement of frequencies that exists even when a particular lyre is not in tune. Although the tuning of a particular lyre does not endure once that lyre is destroyed, it does not follow that the attunement, the Harmony, is destroyed.

The same distinction holds for the soul. It does not follow from Socrates' argument for the imperishability of Soul that his soul or any other soul is imperishible. A body is alive when there is a proper harmony or arrangement of its parts. When that balance gets too far out of harmony life cannot be sustained.

But how can a harmony cause an instrument to act a certain way? — Count Timothy von Icarus

When the lyre is in tune it vibrates in a way that it does not when it is out of tune. With the proper tension it acts in a certain way that it does not when it is not in tune. In the same way a body that is out of tune will not function in the way it does when it is in tune.

... the harmony is the vibration of the strings. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The harmony is not the vibration. The strings will vibrate whether they are in harmony or not.
The harmony or ratio of frequencies is what causes the vibration of the strings to function in a certain way.

If there is one thing predictable about Trumpism is just how unpredictable it is, and how fast change can happen. Look how quickly Republicans who opposed him fell in line to do his bidding. Some still think that his incompetence is a hedge against his unchecked impulses, but it is others who are far more capable who are willing to carry out the demands of the child tyrant; and this time plans are already in place to assure there will be no dissent or opposition.

One place to look is how Trumpian conservatism is shaping education and local elections. They may loose some battles but are set to win the war. While it is true that the Christian Right did not start with Trump he has become their champion, helping consolidate their power and further their dream of theocracy. The Claremont/Hillsdale hypocritical elitist intellectuals still think they can pull his strings. Anti-regulation plutocrats think they have an ally. But Trump is only in it for one reason - Trump. His friends became enemies and his enemies friends.

I think it possible that this time around he will be more overt in his alliances with other autocratic world leaders. A new world order that is only a few steps away from a new world disorder, chaos, and war.

We can go round and round about what fascism is and who is or is not a fascist. What should be clear is that there is a good chance that Trump will be elected. That he thinks that as president he enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution. That he supports the unitary executive theory, and intends to implement it. That he demands fealty to himself and not the office. That a significant portion of Congress will not oppose him. That he has engaged in an effective campaign against truth and facts, aided by a mainstream propaganda machine. That he uses the judiciary as his instrument and attacks it as his enemy. That he has in place both plans and henchmen to consolidate power in a way he was not able to the first time around. That he is riding the wave of the rise of autocratic leaders around the world, and that he has cozy upped to them.

nothing "sticks" to Trump. — schopenhauer1

An intentional or unintentional pun on the question of Fascism?

For most of us, both ancient and modern, the art of living is not something that can be practiced cloistered and removed from the demands and necessities of life.
— Fooloso4

But then, most of us are not renunciates, sages, separated from the masses. Most of us are 'the they', das man, the man in the street. That's why traditional philosophy is extremely non-PC. — Wayfarer

And yet, some of us take seriously philosophy as practice and do not think it beyond us. We are capable of thinking about the kind of life we should lead and doing what we can to live that way.

The root of the distinction between ancient and modern philosophy can be found in Francis Bacon's proclaiming "ipsa scientia potestas est", knowledge itself is power. In Hobbes "scientia potentia est", knowledge is power. In Descartes' provisional moral code. What is at issue is the power to change the world.

While some might reflect on the meaning of suffering, they worked to diminish or eliminate suffering through the power of science or knowledge.

Added: Machiavelli's grounding political power on necessity rather than on questions of the good also plays a role.