en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_polyhedron
1 correction found
Around the same time as the Pythagoreans, Plato described a theory of matter in which the five elements (earth, air, fire, water and spirit) each comprised tiny copies of one of the five regular solids.
Plato did not assign the five regular solids to “earth, air, fire, water and spirit.” In the Timaeus, four solids are assigned to the four classical elements, while the dodecahedron is linked to the cosmos as a whole.
Full reasoning
This sentence misstates Plato's cosmology in the Timaeus.
In Plato's account, four of the regular solids are assigned to the classical elements: fire to the tetrahedron, air to the octahedron, water to the icosahedron, and earth to the cube. The dodecahedron is not assigned to a fifth element called "spirit" in Plato's text. Instead, standard references describe it as representing the universe/cosmos as a whole (or being used to "delineate the universe").
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy summarizes the elemental assignments exactly this way, listing only the four elemental solids. Likewise, the Timaeus article explains that the fifth solid, the dodecahedron, was taken to represent the shape of the universe as a whole. So the article's phrasing that Plato taught a five-element scheme of "earth, air, fire, water and spirit" tied one-to-one to the five regular solids is incorrect.
3 sources
- Plato's Timaeus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Winter 2024 Edition)
Each of these four kinds is made up of geometrical bodies—fire of tetrahedra, air of octahedra, water of icosahedra, and earth of cubes.
- Timaeus (dialogue) - Wikipedia
The fifth element (i.e. Platonic solid) was the dodecahedron ... and was taken to represent the shape of the Universe as a whole.
- Regular dodecahedron - Wikipedia
Plato described the regular dodecahedron, obscurely remarked, '...the god used [it] for arranging the constellations on the whole heaven'.