The Binding Power of Knowledge (I. Kant’s Nebular Hypothesis)

Kant’s work “Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels oder Versuch von
der Verfassung und dem mechanischen Ursprunge des ganzen Weltgebaudes: nach
Newtonischen Grundsatzen abgehandelt (Universal Natural History and Theory of the
Heavens, or an Attempt to Account for the Constitutional and Mechanical Origin of the
Universe upon Newtonian Principles)” (1755). It is shown that the explanation of the origin
of the Universe given in this treatise, although mechanistic, does not fit the framework of
the mechanics of Newton’s “Principia”. Newton believed that cosmogonic issues are
beyond the scope of natural philosophy, for the origin of the Universe is the mystery of
God. Kant expands the boundaries of natural philosophical speculation: for him, the very
process of formation of planets and stars is a natural philosophical problem whose
solution he offers in the above-mentioned book, while God is relegated to the distant
realm of prime causes as the Creator, so to speak, of the initial material and initial
conditions for cosmogenesis.