I basically agree. I do think our age has some noble spirits though. — j0e

Yes, for instance, the immediate past POTUS today. Or Putin. Or Netanyahu. Or Csontvary Koska Tivadar from the Jozsefvaros. Basically anyone who is not afraid to show their satisfation with being outstanding, and willing and wishing to reap the rewards for their outstanding contributions.

Plato is deep enough to allow for differing interpretations. — Fooloso4

This quote almost makes me want to read more Plato. I skimmed through the "Republic", and I found Socrates nothing but a clever arguer, with a sharp mind and incredible follow-through, however, someone also who never shied away from using psychological pressure to make his fallacious arguments stick. I think Socrates (at least in that book) came across as a person who had an insatiable appetite to win arguments.

To make things worse, I find you, Fooloso4, not only tendentious but also void of moral deplitude, clearly intrapretational, and definitely procumptious.

Beware the 'Vain man' tho, also known as 'His Majesty the Baby. ' I think sometimes good manners can be misinterpreted as weakness, and that anti-social egoism can be mistaken for strength. After all, the junkie who robs his mother is 'looking out for numero uno.' It's one thing to claim a fair portion and another to squander the trust and affection of those who would otherwise be powerful allies. Like or it or not, we are terribly dependent on one another. The smart way to look out for #1 is to be a valued player on a strong team. And what exactly are the boundaries of the self? If I nurture my child, cheer up my wife, share opportunities with a friend, help a stranger start their car....is that really so obviously not looking out for #1?

He that claims less than he deserves is small-souled...For the great-souled man is justified in despising other people—his estimates are correct; but most proud men have no good ground for their pride...It is also characteristic of the great-souled man never to ask help from others, or only with reluctance, but to render aid willingly; and to be haughty towards men of position and fortune, but courteous towards those of moderate station...He must be open both in love and in hate, since concealment shows timidity; and care more for the truth than for what people will think; and speak and act openly, since as he despises other men he is outspoken and frank, except when speaking with ironical self-depreciation, as he does to common people...He does not bear a grudge, for it is not a mark of greatness of soul to recall things against people, especially the wrongs they have done you, but rather to overlook them...Such then being the Great-souled man, the corresponding character on the side of deficiency is the Small-souled man, and on that of excess the Vain man. — Aristotle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnanimity

Illness, death, renunciation of enjoyment, restrictions on his own will, shall not touch him; the laws of nature and of society shall be abrogated in his favour; he shall once more really be the centre and core of creation—‘His Majesty the Baby’, as we once fancied ourselves. The child shall fulfil those wishful dreams of the parents which they never carried out—the boy shall become a great man and a hero in his father’s place, and the girl shall marry a prince as a tardy compensation for her mother. — Freud

https://blogs.uoregon.edu/autismhistoryproject/archive/sigmund-freud-on-narcissism-1914/

.

This quote almost makes me want to read more Plato. I skimmed through the "Republic", and I found Socrates nothing but a clever arguer, with a sharp mind and incredible follow-through, however, someone also who never shied away from using psychological pressure to make his fallacious arguments stick. I think Socrates (at least in that book) came across as a person who had an insatiable appetite to win arguments.

To make things worse, I find you, Fooloso4, not only tendentious but also void of moral deplitude, clearly intrapretational, and definitely procumptious. — god must be atheist

I will neither affirm not deny what you say about me since I don't know what it means. I cannot tell if you made up these terms or just misspelled them badly enough that I cannot identify them and what might be their meaning, I will, at the risk of confirming whatever it is you say find about me, comment on what you find in the Republic.

Many years ago when I first read Plato my first impression was much like yours. He was out to win the argument and did so by questionable means. So I set out to make my own arguments against him. The more I tried to pick apart his arguments the more I saw not only how closely tied together they were but how they opened up larger issues, and eventually how those too hung together. My youthful confidence in what I thought I knew was shaken and I was hooked.

Two quick points: Socrates defends justice against the sophist Thrasymachus. He beats him at his own game. On the one hand he is defending justice against Thrasymachus' claim that justice is the advantage of the stronger. On the other, he is defending philosophy against sophistry and the claim that the sophist can teach the art of making the weaker argument stronger.

On the one hand he is defending justice against Thrasymachus' claim that justice is the advantage of the stronger. — Fooloso4

Th...us claims what IS. Socrates describes what should be. The two are not on the same page

On the other, he is defending philosophy against sophistry and the claim that the sophist can teach the art of making the weaker argument stronger. — Fooloso4

... while he couldn't create an argument against the sophists' view, without proving sophistry right by applying the sophists' method or process.

My hangup was his argument against X...on*,who claimed happiness is the most valuable thing to attain; S replies, "would you settle to be a sea urchin, which is happy?" X...on recoils, he says definitely not; S cleans his sword of the blood of victory over X...on. Whereas S's argument was a simple case of Ad Hominem.

Funny that you mention justice, as my paper that every philosophical body in their right mind rejects, including the editors of articles of this site, and which I, in complete frustration, published here 4 days ago, and which everyone here also avoided commenting on as if it were Satan's very own bile, deals a bit with that issue (as a sideline, not germane to the main topic).

My words were made up, as an attempt at humour, in a roundabout way to show that I don't know what tendentious means. It was funny, but the reference connection was so weak, that it was completely lost to everyone but myself. I don't blame anyone else for this, it was quite natural to not see the connection in the way I meant it.

* X...on: abbreviation of a made-up name (ending with ...on, like many Greek names were at the time: Laokoon, Platon, etc.).

.

Th...us claims what IS. Socrates describes what should be. The two are not on the same page — god must be atheist

I do not think it sufficient to say that justice is whatever is. In that case opposites would both be just as long as they occur somewhere. Harming your family and friends be no more or less just then helping them.

... while he couldn't create an argument against the sophists' view, without proving sophistry right by applying the sophists' method or process. — god must be atheist

It is about intent. There is another dialogue called the Sophist. A main concern of the dialogue is the difference between the philosopher and the sophist. There is not all that much difference, but the differences are significant.

My hangup was his argument against X...on* — god must be atheist

As far as I know he makes no such argument. It is yours.

Whereas S's argument was a simple case of Ad Hominem. — god must be atheist

How can one discuss happiness without regard to the person seeking it? Socratic philosophy is about self-knowledge and a way of life. He calls himself a physician of the soul. Of course it is about the person. But this does not mean X ...on alone, but the reader who is led the reflect on herself and her life.

My words were made up, as an attempt at humour — god must be atheist

I thought they might be, but as you know there are all kinds of things being said on the forum.

As far as I know he makes no such argument. It is yours. — Fooloso4

It's in the "Republic". We discussed this argument in class at great length. I would be hard forced to quote it as my rote memory is not good. I'll try to find a machine-searchable text of the Republic and maybe I can find the passage.

How can one discuss happiness without regard to the person seeking it? — Fooloso4

I am sorry, but I am quite sure you are beyond and above the need to explain how Ad Hominem works, and what fallacious reasoning it evokes. Without quoting the passage, however, it is not possible to show the specific example. I beg your patience until such time as I find the particular quote. Thanks.

There is not all that much difference, but the differences are significant. — Fooloso4

I have no argument against this; I agree. However, you must admit that the method is the same that S uses, which the Sophists advocate, esp. in that argument that S uses against the sophists. "Here's looking at you kid, and this is why your method is wrong," while S uses the very same type of methodology in his argument. The intent may be different (both wanting to win an argument?? Where is the difference in intent there? But I shan't force this discussion), but the method is the same-- and S is proving in that argument that the method itself is wrong in and by itself.

I do not think it sufficient to say that justice is whatever is. In that case opposites would both be just as long as they occur somewhere. Harming your family and friends be no more or less just then helping them. — Fooloso4

Th...us' claim is immaterial whether it's mine or not mine. It is, however, a claim that reflects the status quo of what justice, the process and the enforcement of it, entailed at the time. That's what I meant by "IS", I did not mean that it is the absolute truth. I meant to say that that was its status quo. I am sorry this meaning I did not express unambivalently. You are right, inasmuch as "what justice IS" could be seen as an agreement by me that that's what just is in justice. Do I need to depict what I meant by S arguing what justice ought to be?

--------------------

So easy to misunderstand another, and to force explanations due to unclear writing. In this instance I bear the guilt of unclear writing... What I wrote by saying "what justice IS" completely covered the meaning I intended to cover, but I failed to see that it could be validly misapplied to mean things other than what I intended to say.

I thought they might be, but as you know there are all kinds of things being said on the forum — Fooloso4

:-)

you must admit that the method is the same that S uses, which the Sophists advocate, esp. in that argument that S uses against the sophists. — god must be atheist

Socrates spoke differently to different people. The dialogue form and the identification of the people he is addressing are not just stylistic. With the sophist its a power play.

"Here's looking at you kid, and this is why your method is wrong," — god must be atheist

Rhetoric is not wrong. It is a means of persuasion.

The intent may be different (both wanting to win an argument?? Where is the difference in intent there? — god must be atheist

T. intends to persuade Glaucon and Adeimantus (who are Plato's brothers) to pay him to learn how to make the weaker argument stronger. Socrates intends, ostensibly, to persuade them that justice is in their own best interest as well as in the best interest of the city, but he is leading them to philosophize; not simply to make the weaker argument the stronger but to be able to identify which arguments are in fact stronger. And this means not simply how to win arguments against others, but to turn in inward to find arguments that will guide them.

It is, however, a claim that reflects the status quo of what justice ... — god must be atheist

Yes, I agree, and this tension between what is and what is best plays out on many levels. I can't go into detail here but Socrates was sentenced to death for philosophizing. At his trial he does not defend himself or philosophy in the forceful way we see him arguing in the other dialogues. It has been suggested by commentators that the Republic is Plato's defense of philosophy. Socrates creates a city in speech. In other words, we do not find justice in the city. The definition of justice that Socrates settles on is, ironically, minding your own business. In other words, the status quo is an injustice to philosophy that can only be remedied if the city stays out of the philosopher's business.

Socrates introduces the city in order to see what justice looks like in the soul. The city is "the soul writ large". Minding your own business also means tending to the politics of your soul, that is, a well ordered soul, ruling yourself through reason. Justice also means the health of the soul, the proper balance of its parts.

Socrates is clear that he has no illusion as to the likelihood that the philosopher-king will rule. The tension between what is and what is best plays out here with the powerless philosopher developing the ability to safeguard philosophy from those who have the power to say what justice is and can thereby forbid philosophy. Its suppression forces it underground. Plato develops a way of writing that is at once out in the open and public and hidden from the view of the city.

Food for thought on the Sage:

Only in the misery of man lies the birthplace of God. Only from man does God derive all his determinations; God is what man desires to be; namely, his own essence and goal imagined as an actual being. Herein, too, lies the distinguishing factor separating the neo-Platonists from the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Sceptics. Existence without passion, bliss, independence from need, freedom, and autonomy were also the goals of these philosophers, but only as virtues of man; this means that these goals were based on the truth of the concrete and real man. Freedom and bliss were supposed to belong to this subject as its predicates. Hence, with the neo-Platonists – although they still regarded pagan virtues as true – these predicates became subject; that is, human adjectives were turned into something substantial, into an actually existing being – hence the distinction between the neo-Platonist and Christian theology which transferred man's bliss, perfection, or likeness to God into the beyond. Precisely through this, real man became a mere abstraction lacking flesh and blood, an allegorical figure of the divine being. Plotinus, at least on the evidence of his biographers, was ashamed to have a body. — link

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/future/future1.htm

We seem to keep getting stuck on this. If the assertion is that higher truth that can only be apprehended by non-rational means, the notion of demonstration or evidence takes on a different slant. That's kind of the point of the 'sage caper' - it is beyond the fragilities of even the scientific method. To say it is bunk because it can't be demonstrated is fair enough from a physicalist perspective, but perhaps we are trying to use a ruler to measure air pollution? The test of a sage's wisdom is presumably found by doing the work - learning the lessons, following the contemplative life, etc.

This discussion has been one of definitions and suppositions which is fine to a point, But in the end we have lack specificity. Who is a sage we can explore? What can be said about this sage? Incidentally, how many female sages can we name? — Tom Storm

I missed this earlier.

Right, from a physicalist (I would prefer to say "empiricist and even rationalist") perspective it is bunk. It is bunk because there is nothing that can be corroborated from the public perspective.The same seems to be true of aesthetic judgements; they are bunk if you try to universalize them.

I'm not sure how you are thinking the "sage caper" to be "beyond the fragilities of even the scientific method"; I see the method itself as the most robust just because it incorporates the possibility of public corroboration. What do you think the aforementioned fragilities consist in?

I don't see how our doing the work, following the contemplative life, can test any wisdom but our own (as we alone assess it's growth and others can only judge us by our actions since our "inner life" per se is hidden from view). Perhaps our doing the work and following the contemplative life could be said to test the sage's method, but the basic methods are ages-old and fairly cross-cultural.

So, I think the only test of any purported sage's wisdom is to be found in their fruits; in their actions and works; just as it is with any of us. Who is a sage we can explore? I don't know, perhaps just pick any purported sage and look at their biography insofar as it is publicly available.

It's true there don't seem to be many purported female sages; perhaps due to a general female lack of such egotistical presumption, or the patriarchal nature of the spiritual tradition. Theosophy does have a few: Blavatsky, Alice Bailey, Dion Fortune, Sri Aurobindo's spiritual partner known as The Mother. No doubt there are others. There are a few female mystics counted as saints; would they count as sages?

from a physicalist (I would prefer to say "empiricist and even rationalist") perspective it is bunk. It is bunk because there is nothing that can be corroborated from the public perspective. — Janus

It doesn't rely on corroboration by the public, but a form of peer review. In other words, there are communities of discourse within such ways-of-knowing are mediated and implicitly corrected - like Sufi, Zen, Advaita schools, and so on. And sure, some of them go wrong, movements wither and become corrupted, or they die out for want of new blood. All kinds of things can go wrong with them, but that doesn't mean they're not real.

Your insistence on judgement in 'the public square' is, as I've said before, driven by a kind of covert hostility on the part of secular philosophy into anything that calls into question its basic assumptions. As Paul Tyson says in Defragmenting Modernity,

Liberal secularism itself is a violent regulator of 'private' belief. You can believe whatever you like, provided do you not believe that your personal beliefs are actually objectively true, or matter in any public way.

I do notice that you patrol the fences for any such incursions. ;-)

If the assertion is that higher truth that can only be apprehended by non-rational means, the notion of demonstration or evidence takes on a different slant. That's kind of the point of the 'sage caper' - it is beyond the fragilities of even the scientific method. — Tom Storm

It's not that the scientific method is fragile, but that it's a very blunt instrument. Certainly it can be used to detect minute physical qualities, but as a method it relies on the process of objectification, of the framing of a theory and the identity of the correct questions to ask, and then the objects to ask them of. Science, for that reason, can never capture the reality of moment-to-moment existence, which is what human reality comprises.

The process of philosophical discrimination is similar to science in some ways, but more subtle and more dynamic, as the object of investigation is the workings of one's own mind and body. (I think this is what Husserl was getting at with the phenomenological suspension, epoché.)

So the attainment of insight might be where insight into your habitual tendencies prevents them from manifesting themselves perniciously. That is a technique that is often used in mindfulness-based therapy. One of the common statements of meditation practitioners is that they are less prone to loosing their temper, because they're more aware of the usually-automatic sequence of thoughts and emotions that gives rise to outbursts. Sure, doesn't always happen, but it's an indicator of how that dynamic works. It is said that the mark of progress in inner work is the dimunition of emotional conflict and moodiness.

I'd also like to differentiate between 'non-rational' and 'supra-rational'. It's very easy to act irrationally or impulsively, but that is not what is meant when philosophers point to 'spiritual experience' or 'higher consciousness'. For example, as a consequence of such inner work, you might experience a catharsis, where you realise you've been holding on to some hidden hurt for most of your life, which you haven't been conscious of but which nevertheless profoundly affects your emotional life. Releasing that by seeing into it, by suddenly understanding and recalling what that trauma was, is not a 'rational' process, but it's not irrational either. It can be profoundly emotional and spiritually liberating in a way that your earlier self could not have anticipated. So if that's 'irrational', then so be it.

Besides, what most people mean by 'rational' is 'what can be validated scientifically ' - which points back to positivism, again. People don't 'live scientifically', well, not if they're not citizens of a Soviet model city. It's just what I call 'handrail materialism', the sense that there's a consensual reality that we can hang on to. Which is precisely what philosophy calls into question, but hopefully not in favour of nihilism or the sense that 'nothing matters'. More like a recalibration or reconfiguration, to use a modern metaphor.

Liberal secularism itself is a violent regulator of 'private' belief. You can believe whatever you like, provided do yo not believe that your personal beliefs are actually objectively true, or matter in any public way.

Sorry, Wayf, but this seems way off to me. In (relatively) free (relatively) democratic societies, a person can vote their conscience, for the prohibition of abortion or divorce or porn or weed and so on. They might not get what they want, but that's democracy. They can believe whatever they want to believe, evangelize or discuss, but this comes at the cost of others being able to believe and say things they don't like.

I agree that 'free' societies 'carve out' a private sphere. What they regulate is regulation itself, as in my neighbor doesn't get to force me to pray to Allah/Jehova/Hubbard or burn my Koran/Bible/Dianetics.

FWIW, I think it hurts the case you want to make to shoot at such a wide and venerable target (a freeish society).

Your insistence on judgement in 'the public square' is, as I've said before, driven by a kind of covert hostility on the part of secular philosophy into anything that calls into question its basic assumptions. — Wayfarer

No, it's not. I define human knowledge as knowledge which is, in principle at least, open to anyone, It is also rationally defensible and defeasible, open to correction in the light of contrary evidence.

What you say—

It doesn't rely on corroboration by the public, but a form of peer review. In other words, there are communities of discourse within such ways-of-knowing are mediated and implicitly corrected — Wayfarer

— is also true of aesthetic judgement. It puzzles me as to why you want to keep insisting that so-called esoteric knowledge has a like status to science, mathematics and everyday empirical claims, when it obviously doesn't; just a personal belief you are loath to let go of, I guess.

I'm not sure how you are thinking the "sage caper" to be "beyond the fragilities of even the scientific method"; I see the method itself as the most robust just because it incorporates the possibility of public corroboration. What do you think the aforementioned fragilities consist in? — Janus

I simply meant the common place observation that you can't use science to assess sages. Wayfarer calls science a blunt tool which I think it not quite right either, but I understand his point.

So, I think the only test of any purported sage's wisdom is to be found in their fruits; in their actions and works; just as it is with any of us. Who is a sage we can explore? I don't know, perhaps just pick any purported sage and look at their biography insofar as it is publicly available. — Janus

Problem with this is how does the quotidian mind discern what constitutes an appropriate/robust demonstration of sageness? What exactly are these fruits? No history of sexual predations, or abuses of power, or financial fraud (common enough issues amongst gurus and sages) might be a clue and a starting point. But so much is hidden to us.

There are a few female mystics counted as saints; would they count as sages? — Janus

You tell me. What do we count as a robust demonstration of sageness?

Even if one were to grant that there are sages who can access higher reality and that they might be able to teach you something about this, how on earth do you choose wisely if you do not have this knowledge? On balance I think dead sages from antiquity may be the safest bet.

I define human knowledge as knowledge which is, in principle at least, open to anyone, — Janus

The knowledge of some of those esoteric traditions is open to anyone who is willing to meet the requirements, which are sometimes very strict. On the other hand, in Buddhist cultures, Buddhist teachings are open to anyone.

Sorry, Wayf, but this seems way off to me. — j0e

I see what you mean. I was responding to this exchange:

If the assertion is that higher truth that can only be apprehended by non-rational means, the notion of demonstration or evidence takes on a different slant.
— Tom Storm

Right, from a physicalist (I would prefer to say "empiricist and even rationalist") perspective it is bunk. — Janus

What I'm getting at, is the insistence of scientific rationalism as criteria for philosophical or 'spiritual' practices amounts to a form of regulation. And although of course I value freedom of opinion and free speech, although in some subjects diversity is encouraged in everything except for opinion. :wink:

Although I strongly recommend the book that quote comes from Defragmenting Modernity, by a Australian academic, author and lecturer Dr Paul Tyson, which provides a far greater context for that sentiment.

We live in a strangely fragmented lifeworld. On the one hand, abstract constructions of our own imagination--such as money, "mere" facts, and mathematical models--are treated by us as important objective facts. On the other hand, our understanding of the concrete realities of meaning and value in which our daily lives are actually embedded--love, significance, purpose, wonder--are treated as arbitrary and optional subjective beliefs. This is because, to us, only quantitative and instrumentally useful things are considered to be accessible to the domain of knowledge. Our lifeworld is designed to dis-integrate knowledge from belief, facts from meanings, immanence from transcendence, quality from quantity, and "mere" reality from the mystery of being. This book explores two questions: why should we, and how can we, reintegrate being, knowing, and believing?

I think the only test of any purported sage's wisdom is to be found in their fruits; in their actions and works; just as it is with any of us. Who is a sage we can explore? I don't know, perhaps just pick any purported sage and look at their biography insofar as it is publicly available. — Janus

I am of the view that the Western philosophical tradition has its sages, such as, for example, Socrates, who has already been discussed (and I nominated Spinoza, for which I was criticized). I think there is at least demonstrated sagacity in some of the great philosophers, up to and possibly even including Hegel (despite his atrocious verbosity) and possibly Schopenhauer (although I'll always draw the line at Neitszche :brow: )

The Western tradition has its own esoteric spirituality, which is neoplatonism and its offshoots, as has already been discussed. But that this has been deprecated in favour of scientific naturalism. Plainly, science is indispensable for a huge range of challenges - health, energy, medicine, fuel, transport, and so on. And they are among the fruits of the Western tradition which is now however blind to its own origins.

the insistence of scientific rationalism as criteria for philosophical or 'spiritual' practices amounts to a form of regulation. — Wayfarer

I do agree with you here. The evolving and ever hazy concept of rationality is itself an in-the-works product of that very rationality which is to be further articulated. We're still figuring out what the rules are for making the rules, a project which would not make sense if we didn't already have a rough idea. 'Logic is a gentleman's agreement.' That is to say: more decency than faculty.

I do agree with you here. — j0e

thanks. I realised how intolerant that quote I posted sounded when you called it out. That was nearer to what I was getting at.

I thought so & hoped you wouldn't mind the criticism.

I found a nice essay on the evolving notion of rationality, which treats something like the 'melt' of the faculty-conception into a norm-conception. Let me also note that 'gentleman's agreement' is a hyperbole on my part.

I want to focus on how the predominant understanding of rationality began to shift during the period of Atwater’s history that corresponds to our own “high Enlightenment”. In histories of Atwater, this era is often referred to as “the age of reason”. But while it was an era with a great affection for reason, it was also a period in which traditional conceptions of reason and rationality came under increasing strain.

This, in considerable part, was the product of the emergence of a new conception of “reasonableness”, which developed in tandem with early forms of probability theory. The key feature of this new notion of reasonableness was that, contrary to previous models of rationality, it allowed reasonable belief to be based on merely probable, as opposed to demonstratively certain, grounds. Thus, the traditional conception of rationality, which focused on modes of intuition and reasoning capable of producing certain knowledge, was gradually replaced by a conception of reasonableness, on which being reasonable was fundamentally a matter of responding correctly to uncertainty in the face of less than fully conclusive evidence.

The rise of this conception of reasonableness was associated with important developments in areas ranging from theology to political economy. But a few aspects of it are particularly important for our story here. First, the rise of this probabilistic conception of reasonableness was closely tied to a growing skepticism about the forms of intellectual intuition or rational insight that were characteristic of more robust, rationalist conceptions of reason as a faculty. Indeed, the focus on probability was in some sense a replacement for more robust conceptions of reason or the intellect. For, in the absence of the forms of rational intuition that produced certain knowledge of substantive truths, the best human beings could do seemed to be to respond as reasonably as possible to our mixed and uncertain empirical evidence about the nature of things. Thus, as the scope of reason to deliver certainty become more limited, it was only natural for an increasing interest in merely probable grounds for belief to take its place.

In this way, the move to a probabilistic conception of reasonableness was part of a general trend towards a more modest understanding of the faculty of reason and, by extension, rationality itself. — link

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0100-60452018000400501

I'd add to this probabilistic theme the linguistic turn. We became more aware also of the intrinsic ambiguity of thought-sound itself. The metaphoricity 'behind' or at the 'root' of concepts is yet another destabilization of the idea of a faculty with machine precision. IMV, all that's left of this precision is math ('a generalization of chess'), which still needs to be linked as a dead formal system to worldly application with the usual noisy-metaphorical thought-sound.

(I've missed you in the Saussure thread. The guy is a radical metaphysician in his way.)

Not sure if anyone wants to pull this thread with me, but, returning to artistic esotericism, I'd like to share some mystagogic music.

...to attain its infinity the spirit must all the same lift itself out of purely formal and finite personality into the Absolute; i.e. the spiritual must bring itself into representation as the subject filled with what is purely substantial and, therein, as the willing and self-knowing subject. Conversely, the substantial and the true must not be apprehended as a mere ‘beyond’ of humanity, and the anthropomorphism of the Greek outlook must not be stripped away; but the human being, as actual subjectivity, must be made the principle, and thereby alone, as we already saw earlier , does the anthropomorphic reach its consummation.
...
The true content of romantic art is absolute inwardness, and its corresponding form is spiritual subjectivity with its grasp of its independence and freedom. This inherently infinite and absolutely universal content is the absolute negation of everything particular, the simple unity with itself which has dissipated all external relations, all processes of nature and their periodicity of birth, passing away, and rebirth, all the restrictedness in spiritual existence, and dissolved all particular gods into a pure and infinite self-identity. In this Pantheon all the gods are dethroned, the flame of subjectivity has destroyed them, and instead of plastic polytheism art knows now only one God, one spirit, one absolute independence which, as the absolute knowing and willing of itself, remains in free unity with itself and no longer falls apart into those particular characters and functions whose one and only cohesion was due to the compulsion of a dark necessity.

...the determinate being of God is not the natural and sensuous as such but the sensuous elevated to non-sensuousness, to spiritual subjectivity which instead of losing in its external appearance the certainty of itself as the Absolute, only acquires precisely through its embodiment a present actual certainty of itself. God in his truth is therefore no bare ideal generated by imagination; on the contrary, he puts himself into the very heart of the finitude and external contingency of existence, and yet knows himself there as a divine subject who remains infinite in himself and makes this infinity explicit to himself. — link

source

That's us, 'God,' down in the very heart of finitude, godless otherwise in the fuzz & funk.

My hangup was his argument against X...on*,who claimed happiness is the most valuable thing to attain; S replies, "would you settle to be a sea urchin, which is happy?" X...on recoils, he says definitely not; S cleans his sword of the blood of victory over X...on. Whereas S's argument was a simple case of Ad Hominem. — god must be atheist

I wanted to return to this to say more about ad hominem. I think the passage you have in mind is from Plato's Philebus (21c). The issue in question:

Socrates:
Philebus says that to all living beings enjoyment and pleasure and gaiety and whatever accords with that sort of thing are a good; whereas our contention is that not these, but wisdom and thought and memory and their kindred, right opinion and true reasonings, are better and more excellent than pleasure for all who are capable of taking part in them, and that for all those now existing or to come who can partake of them they are the most advantageous of all things.

It is the life without thought and memory and reason that Socrates likens to that of the sea urchin. He goes on to point out that such a life would also be void of pleasure.

Wiki gives several examples of valid ad hominem arguments. But that is not what I want to discuss.

There are, in my opinion, cases in which it is relevant and appropriate to bring the character or habits of a person into the argument. Socrates says that the unexamined life is not worth living. Philosophy in its pursuit of the ideal of objectivity lost sight of this important aspect of philosophy, that is, philosophy as a way of life. This is far removed from the notion of philosophy as "the view from nowhere".

My translation was totally different. It was in English I could comprehend without a getting a headache. I'll have to look up my version if I can find it. If Philebus is a book, then it's not from that; I only skimmed through the "Republic" and through no more of his books.

I was just curious. It is not a big deal.

Philebus is one of Plato's dialogues. It is published as both a separate book and as part of anthologies.

for me it is a big deal, but totally ignorable, as I am bad at researching texts that I read decades ago, and are not machine-searchable.

I forgot what search terms I used, maybe some combination of Plato, Republic, and sea urchins. One thing I found was this: https://books.google.com/books?id=z5zCBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255&dq=plato+republic+sea+urchin&source=bl&ots=JdgrfdUR9_&sig=ACfU3U3rEx3cR7d-slE9KrIgk-g_50Drag&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjMn4KbiZ_wAhVskeAKHVP5CCoQ6AEwEXoECAgQAw#v=onepage&q=plato%20republic%20sea%20urchin&f=false

On a second thought, maybe it was not in the Republic, but the teacher was reading it up, and giving us on-the-go commentary.

This is how I remember it (your text helped): PH: happiness, joy, pleasure, is the only thing worth anything in life. SO: You mean, not thought, morals, the love of gods, the noble and uplifting thoughts, the love of wisdom? PH: not the least bit. SO: so you would be happy and satisfied living your life as a sea urchin. PH: (recoils) no, that's not right. Of course I would not want to live my life as a sea-urchin.

There was an hominem attack here. PH already made his case. He was forced to give it up not because of the LOGIC of the counter-argument, but because of the inconsistency of PH's thought. He already settled on joy, pleasure, etc. Why give up his stance? Because, and SO properly had psyched out this human feature in PH, humans don't like to give up their humanity. They don't even want to become god. No Christian aspires to that, when they easily could. What would be the reason not to? simple: giving up humanity is impossible for humans. So by stripping PH of his humanity, SO created an Ad Hominem fallacy, which sank PH hook, line and sinker.

On a second thought, maybe it was not in the Republic, but the teacher was reading it up, and giving us on-the-go commentary. — god must be atheist

Mystery solved!

Socrates does seem a bit harsh on Protarchus. I don't know the dialogue well enough to say more. I took a brief look at this:https://philarchive.org/archive/CAIMAT-3

He says:

I suggest that to understand Plato’s dialogues in terms of context and character is to discover to what extent a particular argument is designed to fi t the exact needs required to educate
the interlocutor about himself.

Well, it's one thing to look at a scholar's interpretation of the text in the context of the entire book, and it's another thing to look at the concrete passage and read what the actual argument is, plain and simple.

I think much like Bible interpreters, scholarly interpreters of works give too much credit to the authors. Site unseen, I am skeptical of the genius of Plato to carefully select and assign arguments to different debate partners. Maybe? Yes. For sure? A lot of interpretation. I am not an expert, far from it, as you know, but I do believe in the adage, "I calls them as I sees them." Whether Socrates / Plato had a plan to use a type of argument on TH...US, is immaterial, because it is clear that the argument employed here was of an Ad Hominem fallacy. And that was the whole point I was trying to show. That Socrates did lower himself and his own standards to win arguments.

At the same time, I must say that fallacies in logic have been introduced over the ages, and in Socrates time the only way to prove a point was to reduce the opponent's stance into a self-contradiction. The notion of fallacies emerged later; Aristotle summarized them, and post-Aristotle very many new ones were discovered or invented.

So maybe Socrates found it reasonable to call an Ad Hominem, because A. he had no name for it, and B. though he may have had a concept of it, he may have used that instance not as a logical convincing power, but as a psychological one, and maybe, just maybe, in Plato's view that was a valid tool in argumentation.

Another point I wish to raise with regard to Socrates: In the "Republic" he argues that each entity or type of entity must have a unique and singular thing that gives it that quality. It's in the early part of the book, and he argues with a person, why the doctor can charge money for curing a disease with an herb, while at the same time if somehow the sick person gets hold of that herb, and eats it, and gets better (whether intentionally eating the herb to cure himself or not), the herb itself receives no honorarium.

The other person solves the problem quickly: "Because the doctor combines the herb with his own knowledge that the herb is curative. The money goes to the difference of knowledge between that of the doctor and that of the herb." (The quotes are not precise, exact or verbatim.)

The argument ends by Socrates' opponent needing to go home to his wife to eat dinner.

Socrates continues the arguments with his circle, and culminates it in the idea of the forms. The cumulative or multiplicative effect of disparate qualities to create a particular quality never comes up again.

This is not a fallacy, but a huge and fatal omission of defeating the opponent's view. Socrates acts as if he won the argument, but he never did.

If the person came back and insisted on the type of fact that the sum of a thing is greater than sum of its components, (My genius friend Paul S. said in this vein, "Is the sum of a woman better than her whole?") then the Forms, the Ideals, the entire superstructure of Socrates' philosophy would have crumbled. But Plato skillfully glided over this hurtle, and never allowed it to make it possible for it to destroy his own sweetheart's legacy.