KANT THE SCIENTIST

This is the opening entry of the Kant series.

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In his introductory paragraph to Kant’s philosophy, Bertrand Russell writes: “Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is generally considered the greatest of modern philosophers. I cannot myself agree with this estimate, but it would be foolish not to recognize his great importance.”

And so is he known to the majority of posterity: as a philosopher. But not only that. He was also a great and insightful scientist, and in order for us to understand the Kantian phenomenon better, before we approach his philosophy, we must not be forgetful of the fact that, in his younger years, Kant’s main preoccupation was, indeed, science, rather than philosophy. Continuing with Russell’s narrative, “After the earthquake of Lisbon (in 1755), he wrote on the theory of earthquakes.” (He applied himself to the study of everything known about earthquakes with great diligence, and although his seismology was faulty, it was noted afterwards that Kant’s work represented the very first attempt at a German scientific geography, and certainly the beginning of modern seismology.) He wrote a treatise on wind and a short essay on the question whether the west wind in Europe is moist because it has crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Physical geography was a subject in which he took great interest.

Russell does not say that Kant at this time is responsible for an important astronomical discovery, namely, the discovery of the retardation of the rotation of the Earth, for which he won the Berlin Academy Prize in 1754. Even more importantly, from this, Kant concluded that time (space and time, Die Undinge, were his favorite subjects of philosophical interest, further developed during his philosophical phase later in life) is not a thing in itself, determined from experience, objects, motion, and change, but rather an illusion of the human mind, which preconditions possible experience. Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), the British mathematical physicist and engineer, wrote, in 1897, that “Kant pointed out, in the middle of the last century, what had not previously been discovered by mathematicians or physical astronomers: that the frictional resistance against tidal currents on the earth’s surface must cause a diminution of the earth’s rotational speed. This immense discovery in Natural Philosophy seems to have attracted little attention,-- indeed to have passed quite unnoticed, -- among mathematicians, and astronomers, and naturalists, until about 1840, when the doctrine of energy began to be taken to heart.”

According to the English biologist Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895) “The sort of geological speculation, to which I am referring (geological aetiology, in short) was created as a science by that famous philosopher, Immanuel Kant, when, in 1755, he wrote his General Natural History and Theory of the Celestial Bodies; or, an Attempt to Account for the Constitutional and Mechanical Origin of the Universe, upon Newtonian Principles.” (Thomas H. Huxley, 1869).

Kant’s scientific genius flourishes in his remarkable scientific paper General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels 1755) where he presents his innovative Nebular hypothesis, asserting by deduction that the Solar System was formed from a large cloud of gas (that is, a nebula). He also makes the correct conclusion that the Milky Way is a large disk of stars, formed from a spinning cloud of gas. His soaring fancy does not stop there, further arguing that all other nebulae may also be similarly large and distant disks of stars. Paying tribute to Kant the Scientist, modern scientists concur in their highest opinion of Kant’s scientific speculations, opening new horizons for astronomy, and for the first time extending it beyond the solar system to galactic and extragalactic realms.

…I keep wondering why so many students of philosophy look at Kant exclusively as a philosopher, ignoring his great contributions to solid science and also to political philosophy, where his preference for peace over war and the idea of peaceful coexistence among nations (see my next entry) cannot fail to cause admiration among those who know. Hopefully, my Kant series here can make a difference among those who do not know.