What Is the Spatiotemporal Extension of the Universe? Underdetermination according to Kant’s First Antinomy and in Present-Day Cosmology

Beisbart, Claus (2022). What Is the Spatiotemporal Extension of the Universe? Underdetermination according to Kant’s First Antinomy and in Present-Day Cosmology. HOPOS : the journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 12(1), pp. 286-307. University of Chicago Press 10.1086/719037

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In his Critique of Pure Reason, in the chapter on the antinomy of pure reason, Kant not only argues that aprioristic cosmology is doomed to failure; he also implies that empirical knowledge about the universe is impossible. Today, such a negative verdict about the possibility of cosmological knowledge seems implausible because physical cosmology has made substantial progress. In particular, the spatiotemporal extension of the universe now seems a matter of empirical investigation in which models figure centrally. But I think it is worth considering the possibility that Kant got something right and that he offers insights that can help us to better understand problems in present-day cosmology. In this article, I explore a striking coincidence: according to both Kant and current wisdom, cosmology faces a serious underdetermination problem regarding the spatiotemporal extension of the world. As a closer analysis reveals, however, Kant and modern cosmology differ on the reasons why underdetermination arises. In current cosmology, underdetermination follows from laws that are knowable a posteriori, and not only from the very idea of cosmological knowledge, as Kant would have it. This suggests that the current underdetermination problem is not fully a Kantian one.

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