Misunderstanding Plato (Paul Krause, July 5, 2024, Minerva Wisdom)
Plato’s cosmos is rationally ordered and hierarchal. It is a reflection of the perfection of the Forms, but not the whole cosmos is a perfect, or ideal, reflection. For instance, we all know the form of beauty looms large in Plato’s philosophy. The cosmos, taken as a whole, is a perfect reflection of the form of beauty. Constitutive parts, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the rivers and trees and hills, etc., are not a perfect reflection of the form of beauty and never will be. Instead, every part of the cosmos has some beauty to it in differing degrees. This is only made possible, and makes sense, when you subscribe to a hierarchy of value and beauty as Plato did (which many moderns no longer do which makes it easier for moderns to misunderstand Plato). That is, in a hierarchy some things are naturally greater than others. Those things that are greater are closer in reflection to the ideal. For Plato, wholeness is the perfect reflection of the ideal. Smaller parts, breaking down to individual pieces, while having some embodiment of the ideal within them, are lesser than the whole.
Thus, the earth, and all that is within the earth, possess nature, a reflection of the ideal, but in comparison to the whole of the cosmos, the earth is lesser. Hence, the earth (alone) is not the fullest reflection of the form of beauty. Instead, the earth, when brought together with the sun, moon, stars, and other planets – that is, when the earth is properly situated in the whole of cosmos – becomes far more important and precious when you understand what function, or role, the earth plays in the perfect beauty and reflection of totality. This coming to know the truth magnifies the beauty of the earth and all within it.