Kant’s Nebular Hypothesis and Its Influence on Later Writings Sept 19, 1996 Russell McNeil In 1755 exactly midway between the publication of De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium by Copernicus and today, a little book by a then anonymous 31 year old author dedicated to Frederick the Great was published in Germany. It had a long title: “Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens: An essay on the Constitution and Mechanical Origin of the Whole Universe According to Newton’s Principles” Ambitious. Unfortunately, the publisher went bankrupt, and not even the king got to see the Immanual Kant’s ambitious first book. Thirty six years later -- in 1791 - after Immanual Kant had authored the first three of the essays are considering here this week but before he wrote Perpetual Peace--the now 67 year old Kant-- consented to the publication of a lengthy excerpt from his 1755 treatise. The reprint was not widely read in its day and it wasn’t really until the middle of the 1800’s -- a century after the original printing that the book and its general theses became more widely known. I won’t pretend to make any particularly bold claim on these points. The fully mature and highly sophisticated 67 year old Kant may indeed have shifted his views in the 36 years between writing this and writing this. I only want to note that Kant made no attempt to suppress, alter or recant the theses in the original publication. Not that there was anything to re(k)ant. In fact several of the physical ideas presented in this extraordinary little publication were entirely radical and completely revolutionary -- so revolutionary in fact that it wasn’t until this century -- two hundred years after Kant’s birth that Kant’s speculations---and speculations they were--were confirmed observationally--I’ll talk about those in a moment. If recanting was in the cards for Kant -- it might have been around the theological and metaphysical inferences he drew from the speculative thesis he offered here. I’ll offer you some of the text later and attempt to point out what I mean. And what I mean, what I argue, is that this text exposes Kant’s underbelly in ways that are not so obvious in the writing of the mature philosopher. Kan’s grandparents were Scots who immigrated to the Prussian city of Konigsberg. Kant was born there; lived there; attended university there; taught there; and died there at the age of 80. His degree was in theology but he devoted most of his post graduation energies to mathematics and astronomy. Kant’s world fame dates from the publication of his Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 when he was 56. The critique is a treatise on the theory of Knowledge and arose out of his interest in Newtonian Physics--the principles of which he believed to be no less true than those of geometry and arithmetic. It was only in these later years that Kant devoted his time to philosophy--in the modern sense of the term--although he did occasionally dabble in science and write an essay on lunar volcanoes in 1785 -- around the time he wrote these essays here. The literary style Kant uses in his earlier scientific work is much clearer than in his philosophical works. Now onto this: Kant’s objective in writing this book was to extend Newton’s philosophy of nature beyond the limits set by Newton which were restricted mainly to the solar system. Kant’s inspiration for this book came from the work of an obscure Englishman named Thomas Wright. Wright had written a work called “An Original Theory of the Universe,” in which he argued that the sun like the planets in the solar system revolves about some Universal Centre of Gravitation. Furthermore there were throughout the Universe many of such systems- -we call these galaxies today. FIGURE FROM WRIGHT Kant paid generous tribute to Wright in his book but went far beyond Wright. Kant is concerned with the temporal or evolutionary stages of development of the universe along with its spatial structure: cosmology in other words. In developing his ideas Kant reaches back as far as the pre-Socratic philosophers Leucippus, Democritus and later to Leucretius and Epicurus to assert that the beginning of creation involved a universal diffusion of primitive matter which helped by gravity or weight brought those elementary pieces together causing vortices. Kant--unlike the early atomists--was a theist-- believing that the universe came into being as an act of creation by a transcendent deity. Kant thus begins with atoms, void, Newton’s laws and attempts to account for the major stages of the evolutionary development if the cosmos. But Kant went far beyond anything said by Newton himself who describes the existent regularities found in the world, and especially the solar system--Newton makes no attempt to explain how the system came to be or how it achieved the regularity it now possesses. Newton’s laws account for how the planets remain in their current state but do not account for how they got there. Kant ventured where Newton feared to tread. He attempted to describe how the galaxies came to be, what spatial and physical distribution they might possess, and what various stages of development they might go through: the universe has history and its stages of development could be traced in terms of well established physical principles. That the universe is not static and that it undergoes basic change--that it had a history--was a daring and revolutionary assertion. FOUR POINTS 1): Kant regarded the fixed stars not as a mere swarm but as a system which resembled the system of planets in a fixed plane in a disk like structure (refer to milky way) which he called a “systematic constitution.” CELESTIAL SPHERE 2): Kant extended this idea to the nebulous stars which he saw as remote galactic systems composed of swarms of individual stars. This was an enormous leap of the imagination which was not confirmed observationally until the work of Edwin Hubble in this century--nearly 200 years later. NUBULAR M51 3): Kant speculated further that the entire universe was constituted of a single unified system in which all these external galaxies participated in motions about a common centre. SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS ALL INTERCONNECTED (ON BOARD) 4): He argued that the planetary systems formed from a diffuse distribution of primordial matter by a process of accretion and condensation. How this actually occurs is a matter of speculation even now--what is important is that Kant saw this condensation process as an interconnected phenomenon --part of a very big picture. DEMONSTRATE VERBALLY Imagine a very large and very hot pancake of chaotic primordial gases slowly rotating in space. The pancake is held loosely together by the gravitational attractions of its parts but the parts are kept apart by the very high temperatures. As the pancake cools by radiating its energy away, it begins to contract. As it begins to contract it begins to rotate more quickly-- much like a figure skater rotates more quickly by bringing hers arms closer to her body. As the rotation speed increases parts of the outer surface of the pancake move away from the main body forming smaller bodies or rings. The Meaning What was Kant on about in this book. He described the exercise initially as “...a dangerous expedition...” one in which he has set out“...to establish the existence of a supremely wise creator...” “...the emergence of a “well-ordered whole” from many things of independent nature is undeniable proof of common origin in a universal supreme intelligence which devised a common purpose...” “...there is a God just because nature even in chaos cannot proceed otherwise than regularly and according to order...” “...sharply rebukes Descartes for “the formation of the world in a certain time from rude matter, by the sole continuation of matter once impressed...” He trashes (“I annihilate...” he says) the reasoning of Epicurus, Leucippus and Democritus who in the development of “harmonies and systems similar in many respects came to opposite conclusions on the existence of a deity: “Many have become atheists by the semblance of reasons which, on more exact reflection, would have convinced them most powerfully of the certainty of the existence of the Supreme Being. The consequences which a perverted understanding draws from unimpeachable principles, are frequently very reprehensible; and such were the conclusions of Epicurus, although his scheme exhibited the acuteness of a great thinker.” Why is he so disdainful? “The teachers of the mechanical production of the structure of the world derive all the order from mere chance...I find matter bound to necessary laws. .. Out of chaos I see a beautiful and orderly whole quite naturally developing itself...not by accident or chance...why did matter have laws that aimed at order?...is this not undeniable proof of the community of their origin?...which must have been a Universal Supreme Intelligence, in which the nature of things were devised for common combined purposes? ... matter which is the primitive constituent of all things, is therefore bound to certain laws, and when it is freely abandoned to these laws it must necessarily bring forth beautiful combinations. It has no freedom to deviate from this perfect plan. Since matter is subject to a supremely wise purpose, it must necessarily have been put into such harmonious relationships by a first cause ruling over it; and there is a God, just because nature even in chaos cannot proceed otherwise than regularly and according to order.” Years later, in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant would argue that the great problems of metaphysics like the existence of God -- are insoluble by scientific thought. But, in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) he argues that morality requires belief in God’s existence. Kant's famous categorical imperative, or absolute moral law, "Act as if the maxim from which you act were to become through your will a universal law." His Critique of Judgment (1790) considered the concepts of beauty and purposiveness as a bridge between the sensible and the intelligible worlds. So Kant’s later writings -- at least the ones we are examining here -- obscure and soften the bold deistic certitude we hear here with respect to the theological claims. But the certitude he expresses with respect to “purpose” in the Cosmpolitan essay, for example, seems just as strong. Now in the eighth thesis of Universal History (p. 37) we read: “One can regard the history of the human species ...as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about an internally, and for this purpose, also an externally perfect national constitution...and a few sentences later in “unpacking” this he says (paraphrasing insanely)...is there anything ... in our experience that might confirm this .... llttle... nature’s cycles are so long ... yet, ... based on the premise that the universe has a systematic structure ... (who better to know this--no one but Kant is remotely aware of the Nebular argument) ... we can justifiably conclude that such a cycle--referring now to human purpose-- actually exists. If the universe is systematic in its structure -- a premise Kant seems assured -- and really only he is privy to this--but in 1755 it was still conjecture (200 years later it was confirmed by Hubble) -- that systematic structure is evidence of purpose--the working out of a hidden plan. Taking on the whole universe was for Kant a far easier task than taking on something as simple as say a caterpillar. In the Nebular thesis he says: “The origin of the whole present constitution of the universe will become intelligible before the production of a single herb or caterpillar will become distinctly understood .... because of the complications of the manifold consituents. Kant’s intellectual life seems to have been bracketed by an “if” clause. If .... universe has structure.... then... purpose is evident.... hidden plan is evident .... If hidden plan is established in the universe writ large, then hidden plans in smaller but more complex systems follow (from caterpillers to human societies)... One can only speculate the impact that the subsequent obsevational confirmation of Kant’s speculation in this century might have had on Kant’s later intellectual life. With the “if” clauses less “iffy” Kant’s later reasoning might have been bolder yet.