Skip to main content

The Kant-Laplace hypothesis II



So: what is the philosophical significance of the Kant-Laplace hypothesis, otherwise known as the "nebular hypothesis," which nowadays rules the roost of origin-of-solar-system views?

In chronology, by the way, Kant was way ahead of Laplace, although Laplace gets his name on the theory due to his more analytical, mathematical treatment of the subject. And I've just put Laplace's picture in here.

Now, is there any worthwhile connection we may draw between Kant the astronomer and Kant the philosopher? I think there is.

The nebular hypothesis is a blow (how serious a blow I leave to the reader's own intuition, but surely some sort of a blow) to the single most psychologically powerful argument for the existence of a Providential, supernatural Being -- the argument from design. After all, the solar system, with its marvellous equilibrium and its subtle but overwhelming predictability, is Exhibit A for the designedness of the universe, is it not? Yet Kant's work shows how the development of this solar system can be explained in a purely materialistic/mechanistic way, without any teleology, although given certain initial conditions.

Many years later, after expounding this theory, Kant wrote his famous "Critiques," reworking epistemology, ethics, aesthetics and, not to be overlooked, the philosophy of religion. What did Kant say as to the last of those? He said that none of the proposed proofs of the existence of God can persuade, but that this shouldn't be an obstruction for Faith.

After all, the really real, the noumenal world, is unknowable. And if a Providential, supernatural Being Exists at all, that Being is surely noumenal. So ... the proofs ought to fail, and Faith ought to step into their place.  I do sense a connection.

Perhaps it wasn't really David Hume who awoke Kant from his dogmatic slumber. Perhaps it was the younger Kant, and his work on the solar system.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.   We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a maj...

The Lyrics of "Live Like You Were Dying"

Back in 2004 Tim McGraw recorded the song "Live Like You were Dying." As a way of marking the one-decade anniversary of this song, I'd like to admit that a couple of the lines have confused me for years. I could use your help understanding them. In the first couple of verses, the song seems easy to follow. Two men are talking, and one tells the other about his diagnosis. The doctors have (recently? or a long time ago and mistakenly? that isn't clear) given him the news that he would die soon. "I spent most of the next days/Looking at the X-rays." Then we get a couple of lines about a man crossing items off of his bucket list. "I went sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing, I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu." Then the speaker -- presumably still the old man -- shifts to the more characterological consequences of the news. As he was doing those things, he found he was loving deeper and speaking sweeter, and givin...

Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

  Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave.   First, Plato  is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability.  I  only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable a...