Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.

Somebody not long ago asked on Quora, "What is the meaning of Kant's statement, 'I have no need for that hypothesis' in his work Critique of Pure Reason?"

Yes, the premise of the question is false. But I had fun putting together a reply, and I'll re-use it here, with slight cosmetic changes.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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That is not a Kantian statement. It is one generally attributed to Laplace. And it doesn't come from a book of Laplace’s, either. It comes from a later book by a biographer of Napoleon, discussing a confrontation Laplace, an early 19th century big-shot politician, supposedly had with the Emperor Napoleon. (Kant does come into this story in an indirect way — but put a pin in that for a bit).

Pierre-Simon Laplace was an astronomer and mathematician as well as a politician. While Napoleon was busy in Russia, Laplace wrote a great work on CELESTIAL MECHANICS which was seen in some quarters as the most important thing on astronomy since Newton. Among much else, Laplace posited a “nebular hypothesis” for the origin of the Sun, the earth, the other planets, and their moons. The idea was that it had all been a big disc-shaped cloud of cosmic dust, which slowly congealed as it rotated around its own center. Given gravity, most of it ended up hardening IN that center, but smaller globules became planets, with their own dust-globules circling many of them, which became moons. He worked this all out in impressive detail.

What was shocking to some people about this is that it leaves no direct role for God in the development of any of these celestial bodies. And THAT gets us to the meaning of the phrase, you quote which in French is Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.

According to an 1825 book on the “Last Moments of Napoleon,” the two men did meet. Apparently during the brief post-Elba restoration. And Napoleon told Laplace that he knew of the book on celestial mechanics, and knew that he had left out any mention of the Creator.

Laplace responded “Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.”

It is generally considered a witty affirmation of atheism, since the clock-like nature of the solar system is a favorite point in classical Design-based arguments for the existence of God, and Laplace’s work can be seen as giving an alternative explanation of exactly THAT. So he has no need of the hypothesis of a divine Creator.

Now … where does Kant come in? Well, he wasn’t there when Napoleon confronted Laplace (he was dead) and no Germanic equivalent of the phrase is associated with him. Kant did, though, put forward his own account of much the same view of the nebular hypothesis for the formation of the solar system. Kant did so DECADES in advance of Laplace and may (but need not) have been an influence on him. The Kantian book on the subject is Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755). It is less thorough and less mathematical than Laplace’s treatment.

The Kant-Laplace model (before it could be known as such, of course) did NOT lead Kant to atheism. The nebular theory may, though, have aided in the formation of his broader view that belief in God is an act of faith, something of a leap beyond reason and evidence. If so, then the early development of the nebular theory, which in due course became the 21st century's standard view of the subject, is a striking example of how the same premises can lead two different minds to very different places.

At any rate, that is the story of that famous expression.

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