Reading SN 38.12, I’m struck that clinging to views diṭṭhupādānaṁ and clinging to self-theories attavādupādānaṁ are listed as two separate things. Is attavāda not a kind of diṭṭhi?
Let’s look at the 4 clingings.
On stream entry, clinging to views and rules and rituals are gone.
On non returning, clinging to sensuality is gone.
That leaves only cling to a sense of self as the one to be uprooted at arahanthood. Which should map to conceit/ignorance.
If attavāda is a subset of views, then all the 4 clingings are gone by non returning, thus it should be deeper and something to do with conceit.
At sotāpanna sakkāya-diṭṭhi is overcome but are all views?
That could be, but then our translation/understanding of the Pāli term vāda would need a serious revision, right? It’s usually taken to mean a stated philosophical position, a doctrine, or a theory.
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SN24.1 and the whole SN24 does imply that a stream winner has overcome all sorts of views.
vāda has the root vad, to say, perhaps it’s to say “I am” which is referred to by attavāda. Which the non-returner still has a scent of it.
Perhaps, but that’s the meaning of asmimāna so why not use that term if that’s what was meant? And does vāda have this special meaning in only this case or do we need to reinterpret other suttas with vāda?
You’re here assuming that this list of four clingings is exhaustive. Perhaps they are not and anāgāmīns have some fifth clinging? Or perhaps they are beyond clinging and their remaining bhava taṇhā is merely residual from past upadāna?
As I understand it, the difference between a diṭṭhi and a vāda is that a diṭṭhi is just a “simple” view, while a vāda is a more sophisticated theory that has been thought out and structured, etc. For example in MN 8 we find “theories of self” and “theories of the cosmos” (attavāda and lokavāda).
All theories of self are based on the view that there is a self, but they all explain it in a different way, like for example “the self and the cosmos are eternal”, etc. etc. (as outlined in detail in DN 1).
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That would be my understanding as well, but in MN 11 we have:
They describe the complete understanding of grasping at sensual pleasures and views, but not precepts and observances, and theories of a self.
I guess you would understand that to mean that these non-Buddhist philosophies don’t elaborate the teaching on views? 
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it should be they don’t elaborate the teaching on personality views right? As they can describe the complete understanding of clinging to views.
It’s not elaborated in this sutta in any case. Bhante Sujato has a note that perhaps ascetics like the one of MN 74 could be meant, whose doctrine is, “Nothing is acceptable to me”.
I take it that you see a contradiction in the fact that someone has “completely understood” (which includes having let go of) the grasping at views, but on the other hand is still holding theories which are based on these same views that he has let go of? And I guess I don’t have the philosophical correct, waterproof answer to this problem.
I would say when someone is still grasping at something, whatever that may be, they have not completely given up the view that there is a self. Otherwise they would not grasp at anything.
Maybe what the Buddha is going to say is, although these ascetics claim to teach the “complete understanding” of all these ways of grasping, their understanding is still incomplete because they haven’t given up the sense of self.
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If we follow the commentaries, stream winner doesn’t have grasping of the view of self, but still has the grasping to sensuality.
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But they probably haven’t given up a subtle sense of self that is not solidified into a “view”. If I am right, this is only given up at arahantship.
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Sure. But that’s not the meaning of the word attavāda! Hence the pickle 
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Could link to a commentary?!?
MN11 does kinda give the hints to the difference between ditthi and vada in this context (since it uses all four items as well), yes?
Mendicants, there are these two views:
Dvemā, bhikkhave, diṭṭhiyo—
existence views and destruction views
bhavadiṭṭhi ca vibhavadiṭṭhi ca.
In addition, we have an instance of outsiders abandoning these two views, but not attavada.
I wonder just what bhavaditthi and vibhavaditthi might refer to. I should check the commentaries. They are hardly found in the suttas with little context to help with aide.
Eternalism / annihilationism would be like the obvious ideas, but somehow I doubt that, since they revolve around a self view anyway, so it’s unlikely that they could be abandoned, with still a lingering attavada remaining.
But if it is, then, perhaps attavada is the very “neti neti” Atman that Yajnavalkya talks about that is beyond definitions, existence or non-existence, etc…?
So it would trail back to what @sabbamitta ayya was saying, perhaps…
I know I wasn’t much aide but these are a few observations I’ve made. 
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Ok Bhante so my confusion was …
asked Notebook LM with commentaries, it does affirm that attavāda is personality view, gone at stream entry, but the clinging to sensuality includes the form and formless realms,
so I ask…
Could link to a commentary?!?
you cite Udana commentary…
Now, to show what is in the ultimate sense the escape from suffering, it is said, “With the destruction of all clinging, there is no arising of suffering.” Herein, “the destruction of all clinging” means the complete abandonment without remainder of all four kinds of clinging—clinging to sensual pleasures, to views, to rites and rituals, and to the doctrine of self—through the attainment of the noble path. Among these, clinging to views, to rites and rituals, and to the doctrine of self are destroyed by the path of stream-entry; they attain the state of having the nature of non-arising. Clinging to sensual pleasures that leads to the planes of misery is destroyed by the first path; the gross form which is sensual lust by the second path; the subtle form by the third path; and that which pertains to lust for form and the formless is abandoned by the fourth path.
The confusion I had was that “formless” == “sensual”? and I’m just going to chime out now. It’s really not my place