Because you keep talking about Trump. — Tzeentch

You are lost and I am not going to draw a map for you or make the connections from one post to the next.

How will Trump influence whether Biden goes to war with Iran and its proxies or not? — Tzeentch

A non sequitur. Why would you think or think that I think Trump will influence Biden's decision?

And also, while the Right doesn't have a whole lot of fondness for Jews, they really don't like Muslims, so the enemy of their enemy is now their friend. — RogueAI

The whole thing is very peculiar. The Evangelicals have be seduced by power. Apparently, they do not think that the power of God is enough. Not ever their Saviors - both the old one and the new improved version are not enough. They have long desired and plotted to seize power. Israel is nothing more than a means to that end. They have no regard for the Jews. Together with the Muslims and liberals and LGBT and everyone else who is not what they themselves pretend to be will be left behind in the Rapture.

I haven't figured out if Trump is fully "self-serving" in foreign policy or "Russia-serving". I — schopenhauer1

Perhaps he thinks they are the same.

He says that he likes winners. If it is strong man against strong man he likes whoever he thinks is winning. Unless he thinks this is against his interests.

You seem intent on linking escalation in the Middle-East to Trump, — Tzeentch

Nope. I don't know what will happen and do not know what if any role Trump will play.

What I do know is that you have left out some key players that play an important role in determining what will happen.

... various wars in the Middle-East, and thus not serve Trump's isolationist views. — Tzeentch

You are talking about Trump as if he is someone with principles. He is isolationist only to the extent he thinks it benefits him. He has not taken a clear stand on what he would do in the face of escalating conflict.

Israel/the lobby know that full well. — Tzeentch

The Religious Right, the most powerful faction of this lobby is guided by revelation not reason. They are actually eagerly looking forward to this final prophesied holy war.

Yes. The Israel lobby consists of various uncouth interest groups including Zionist Christians. I'm well-aware. — Tzeentch

What you do not seem to be aware of is just how much power and influence they have over Trump and what is no longer the Republican Party but now the Christian Party of Trump. They have been willing to look the other way when it comes to what Trump says and does, but this may be non-negotiable.

You got this much right: it is not rocket science. Unlike rocket science there are too many variables and indeterminacies to calculate.

Yet Plato's approach is very different, and his ethics in particular are quite different. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One important thing that they have in common that helps to put this difference into perspective is that they do not regard philosophy as a set of topics or problems to be addressed as abstractions or as a doctrine of universal truths without regard to the differences between readers and their cultural and historical circumstances. Nietzsche calls attention to something both practice:

The difference between the exoteric and the esoteric, formerly known to philosophers–among the Indians as among the Greeks, Persians, and Muslims ... — Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 30

Platonism certainly did become a dogma over the centuries, and this is to some extent what Nietzsche is actually attacking when he rails against Plato — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree. I think it a mistake not to distinguish between Plato and Platonism.

... the Phaedrus ... It's not until Socrates throws his cloak back in divine inspiration ... — Count Timothy von Icarus

One of the many double entendres in this erotic dialogue.

I have not listened to Michael Sugrue's Teaching Company's course but since he studied under Allan Bloom and Joseph Cropsey at the University of Chicago he must have learned how to read Plato.

A key passages in the Phaedrus is a guide for how to do this. Socrates says :

... every speech must be constructed just like a living creature with a body of its own, so that it is neither headless nor footless; instead it should be written possessing middle and extremities suited to one another and to the whole.

(264c)

Just as we cannot understand a living creature without understanding how all the parts fit together to form the whole, we cannot understand Plato without understanding how all the parts fit together to form the whole of the dialogue.

First, your characterization of "a cynical plot" is markedly different from mine. I called it a perfect storm of perverse incentives, not a plot. — Tzeentch

If Biden's incentive is to win the election by waging war, the attempt to carry that plan out would be a cynical plot.

Next, you must understand that Trump is anti-establishment — Tzeentch

Trump is anti anything that will not be to his benefit. Support of Israel is to his benefit when it comes to his base.

neither the neocons nor Israel (or the lobby) want him as president because of his isolationism. — Tzeentch

The neocons no longer play a significant role in American politics.

According to Wikipedia:

The largest pro-Israel lobbying group is Christians United for Israel with over seven million members.

The footnoted Wikipedia source is Fox News.

If you do not understand the importance of the Religious Right you cannot give a plausible analysis of the part Israel plays. They are pro-Israel Zionists.

With the indiscriminate killing in Gaza Biden is well aware that support for Netanyahu's Israel may be working against him with liberal, moderate, and independent voters.

Biden, like the rest of us, can get things wrong. The claim that I am responding to, and it is not one that you made, is that Biben will go to war in order to win the election. For example:

I'm just waiting for Sleepy Joe to go to war with Iran and blow up the Middle-East to salvage his chances at this election. — Tzeentch

The fact is: Republicans in Congress are saying we should attack Iran while Biden is looking for a diplomatic solution. Please explain how this is a cynical plot by Biden and/or Israel and neocons to get him elected.

It is not the neocons but the Evangelical Christian Right who are the most influential advocates for Israel. They are also the most influential advocates for Trump. For Christian Zionists Israel's war is all about the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Biden supporters, aka Republicans in Congress, are now saber rattling, calling for attacks on Iran.

This isn't rocket science. — Tzeentch

And yet, still easy enough to get it exactly wrong.

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?