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.

The Sophists focused on the making of money and teaching what they thought was good; We know Socrates didn't like them very much. — Dermot Griffin

With the exception of money making, and it should be pointed out that Socrates accepted financial help from his friends, what distinguishes Socrates from the Sophists? Doesn't Socrates teach what he thought was good? It is worth noting that Socrates, at the time he lived, was regarded as a sophist. In Plato's dialogue Sophist the distinction is made questionable.

Socrates was accused at trial of making the weaker argument the stronger. This is taken up in the Republic where the strength or power of an argument to persuade is of central importance. Also of central importance is political power - the question of who should rule. This extends to the question of the politics of the soul - what holds power over the soul. The power of persuasion is not limited to the power of argument. The stories of the poets/theologians play an important role as well. Only those stories that are approved and invented by the philosopher kings are allowed. A decisive power grab.

It is simply not true that:

... philosophy (and the humanities in general) is broken down to the advocacy of the position of meaning or power ... — Dermot Griffin

They are not separable. 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.

The problem is that you (plural) don't know whom you're up against and you don't even care to find out what it would take to win against them. — baker

What would it take to win against them?

Merit hiring was practiced by the ancient Greeks which led to a revolt with the Hebrews who wanted to maintain their system of jobs depending on heritage, not merit. — Athena

According to the article you cited:

Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes launched a massive campaign of repression against the Jewish religion in 168 BCE.

What is the source of the claim that the revolt was in response to a threat to their system of jobs depending on heritage, not merit?

But that’s what he said in the preceding sentences to the one you quoted. — NOS4A2

He lied to them and you and the rest of the Trumpsters believed it. But he knew he had lost the election.

And yes, he wanted Congress to makes a stink about certification ... — NOS4A2

But he did not simply want Congress to a make a stink. He wanted his patriotic warriors to prevent certification of the results of a legitimate election. Even if he is unable to believe the results the attempt to prevent certification after all legal options have failed is a crime.

We can’t certify a fraudulent election. — NOS4A2

The standard fallback position. There is no evidence of a fraudulent election. Trump's own people told him that.

His legal attempts to overturn the election all failed. As did his previous illegal attempts.

Are you now admitting that when he said "we cannot let that happen" he was in fact advocating that they do something to prevent certification?

he never advocated anything of the sort. — NOS4A2

What did he mean when he said "we can't let that happen"?

For the third time:

The attempt to prevent certification of the election is lawless action. — Fooloso4

That is what he sent them there to do.

When he said:

And we can't let that happen.

that is a call for action to prevent it from happening. Walking down the street and cheering on the senators and congressmen does not prevent certification.

That’s just not true. — NOS4A2

What is just not true? All the quotes are from the speech. He said:

You will have an illegitimate president. That's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen.

He said:

This is not just a matter of domestic politics — this is a matter of national security.

He called them "patriots", these "warriors".

He said at the end of the speech:

So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Once again:

The attempt to prevent certification of the election is lawless action. — Fooloso4

How does one fight like hell by peacefully walking down Pennsylvania Avenue? Trump may be stupid but he is shrewd enough to not spell it out any further.

Here are the two elements of the Brandenburg Test:

The speech is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action,” AND
The speech is “likely to incite or produce such action.

The attempt to prevent certification of the election is lawless action. In the January 6th speech he said:

You will have an illegitimate president. That's what you'll have. And we can't let that happen.

At that point what could they have done in a peaceful manner to prevent Biden from becoming President?

How were these "patriots", these "warriors" to respond to this:

This is not just a matter of domestic politics — this is a matter of national security.

By walking down Pennsylvania Avenue?

The modern period is defined by the success of applying mathematics to the world, and over time Plato gets inverted. Now there is no problem with the world, it exemplifies perfect mathematical beauty, but with the the mind.
— Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps a relevant aspect of the inversion - I'd say contra Plato's anamnesis, that we are all born ignorant and we are all going to die only somewhat less ignorant.

(Not that I know much about Plato's thinking that hasn't come from secondary and tertiary sources.)
@Fooloso4 — wonderer1

Since I was flagged I'll jump in. Much is made of the Forms, but they are posited as hypothetical, and inadequate as explanations. They are “safe and ignorant” (Phaedo 105c). An adequate explanation is in need of physical causes as well.

So why does he make such extensive use of them?

The problem is that one who does not “allow that for each thing there is a character that is always the same" will “destroy the power of dialectic entirely” (Parmenides, 135b8–c2). Something like the Forms underlies (hypo - under thesis - to place or set) thought and speech. Perhaps Plato intends here to reconcile Parmenides and Heraclitus.

Socrates references Anaxagoras, who says that it is Mind that directs and is the cause of everything. In Socrates' discussion of this he shifts from Mind as prior to what is ordered to how his own mind makes sense of and orders things.

Nietzsche's quotes are from BGE 17. On first reading it may seem that he is denying that there is an "I" or individual. He is not. What he is denying is an interpretation of what that is.

This is easier to understand if we look an earlier section:

Boscovich has taught us to abjure the belief in the last thing that "stood fast" of the earth--the belief in "substance," in "matter," in the earth-residuum, and particle- atom: it is the greatest triumph over the senses that has hitherto been gained on earth. One must, however, go still further, and also declare war, relentless war to the knife, against the "atomistic requirements" which still lead a dangerous after-life in places where no one suspects them, like the more celebrated "metaphysical requirements": one must also above all give the finishing stroke to that other and more portentous atomism which Christianity has taught best and longest, the SOUL- ATOMISM. Let it be permitted to designate by this expression the belief which regards the soul as something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad, as an atomon: this belief ought to be expelled from science!

(BGE, 12)

But if we stop there we will not understand him. He continues:

Between ourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid of "the soul" thereby, and thus renounce one of the oldest and most venerated hypotheses--as happens frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly touch on the soul without immediately losing it. But the way is open for new acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis; and such conceptions as "mortal soul," and "soul of subjective multiplicity," and "soul as social structure of the instincts and passions," want henceforth to have legitimate rights in science. In that the NEW psychologist is about to put an end to the superstitions which have hitherto flourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the idea of the soul, he is really, as it were, thrusting himself into a new desert and a new distrust--it is possible that the older psychologists had a merrier and more comfortable time of it; eventually, however, he finds that precisely thereby he is also condemned to INVENT--and, who knows? perhaps to DISCOVER the new.

(BGE 12)

What he is rejecting is the notion of a thinking substance. The soul is not something we have. In his refinement of the soul-hypothesis Nietzsche posits a “soul of subjective multiplicity”. This solves the problem of the seeming mystery of a thought that comes when it wishes rather than when I wish. It is not that the thought has some kind of independent existence and comes to me from elsewhere, but simply that there is not something within me, an “I” or “ego” or “little ‘one’” that is the agent of my thoughts. This is not a denial of agency, it is a denial of something within me, some substance or soul-atom that is the agent.

↪Fooloso4 I do not disagree with anything you said but find an issue with the connection between inheritance and family position determining one's lot in life. — Athena

Yes, this is a serious problem. Do you have any solutions?

Complete lies. — NOS4A2

You, Trump, and the mage faithful have rendered the term 'lie' meaningless when you use it. Except when you think you might win points for yourself and the cult of Trump.

I said I seek argument for its own sake, ie, not for the sake of winning or persuasion. — NOS4A2

No. This is what you said. In full:

I enjoy it. I seek argument for its own sake. I get to test my intuitions against some fairly heavy criticism, and so far so good. If I wanted consensus and adulation I'd join Truth Social.

Why does it hurt so much to see a dissenting opinion? — NOS4A2

And this is what it was in response to:

Doesn’t being a laughingstock who gets repeatedly embarrassed get tiresome?

That’s less a question for you than for the forum. Why do people like this go on? What’s the point? — Mikie

Like Trump you say something then say something else to modify it. As if you did not say what you said and said something else all along. And like Trump you attempt to hide behind your words when your actions tell a different story.

Yes, I seek argument for its own sake, — NOS4A2

If you seek argument for the sake of your education and growth then you do not seek argument for the sake of argument. Except it is evident that you actually do argue for the sake of arguing. It is then evident that what you do is pointless. Round and round.

My compulsive defense of Trump correlates well with my opposition to his enemies. — NOS4A2

Of course it does! But he already has more than enough high paid lawyers who do a much better job of defending him than you do. Whether they will all actually get paid is another story.

I think our disagreement is mostly a matter of terminology. As I understand it, a thought experiment is hypothetical. Something that can be entertained while one sits comfortably in his armchair. Your quote is from aphorism 341 of The Gay Science, "The Heaviest Burden". It begins:

What if a demon crept after you into your loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to you ...

Although this is a hypothetical: "what if ...", what the demon says is not posed as a hypothetical, but as something existential. Something that speaks into your loneliest loneliness. It is the thought that acquires power over you, the thought that transforms you. I do not think a thought experiment has this power. We think about if from a safe distance. I don't think as a hypothetical it has this power over us.

It's a method. The end is one's own education and growth — NOS4A2

So then, it is not arguing for the sake of argument. You often seem to forget this.

The truth is, though, that this does not square with your compulsive defense of Trump.

Still all seems like a thought experiment to allow a certain amount of freedom to the person who understands it. — Vaskane

Describing it as a thought experiment seems too detached. It is without the struggle:

Courage also slays dizziness at the abyss; and where do human beings not stand at the abyss? Is seeing itself not – seeing the abyss?

Courage is the best slayer; courage slays even pity. But pity is the deepest abyss, and as deeply as human beings look into life, so deeply too they look into suffering.

I agree.

From The Three Metamorphoses”.

Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: ITS OWN will, willeth now the spirit; HIS OWN world winneth the world’s outcast.

I think part of the answer to the riddle or enigma of the eternal return is "the moment", the "gateway", the "abyss". Whatever was and will be we stand at the moment of the abyss. We have limited knowledge of what was and limited or no knowledge of what will be. Here, now, we must decide, we must act, we must move toward what will be. For us now it is all new.

How does one advance his thinking if he refuses to subject his beliefs to the grindstone of argument? — NOS4A2

The question is: to what end? If the end is arguing for the sake of arguing, then there can be no advance, just endless argument.

That's because a child hasn't formed decisions yet which decide (kill off) all other outcomes. — Vaskane

But given the eternal return all those outcomes have played out a countless number of times.

And given the eternal return there is nothing new in the revaluation of values. All have occurred countless times before. All that elevates man will in time drag him down. All values are ephemeral, transitory, changing. All are of equal value so why the "sacred yes' to these and not others when in time the sacred yes must become a sacred no?

I don't give a fig about dates. I do eat Froot Loops though. My education in philosophy is solely through cartoons, but I don't limit myself to the classics such as Looney Tunes and Rocky and Bullwinkle.

I seek argument for its own sake. — NOS4A2

That is shallow, frivolous, and unphilosophical. It is the reason why Plato reserves the practice of philosophy for those who are mature enough to approach it seriously. Argument for argument's sake is for sophists and children.

I get to test my intuitions against some fairly heavy criticism, and so far so good. — NOS4A2

This is a good example of the problem. If your intuitions are reflected in your arguments then your inability to see when and how your arguments have failed is the result of arguing for the sake of arguing. It is as if you want to play chess and think that you have not lost when checkmated because you continue to move pieces around.

Because you do not take words and arguments seriously you are not taken seriously.

For some negative attention is better than no attention.

Some regard the lack of approval as a sign of superiority. They understand what others do not.

Some get some kind of satisfaction from trolling. This may be a due to one or both of the above.