Matter and cosmogenesis in Kant's Theory of the Heavens

Abstract

In 1755, Kant published his General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, in which he presented his hypothesis on the formation of the solar system, known as the primitive nebula hypothesis. This original theory of the heavens was written in dialogue with the conceptions of celestial matter of his time. On the one hand, Kant recognized Descartes' cosmological enterprise as a decisive mechanistic requirement for the intelligence of physics, but his vortices of matter fell into disrepute: Newton invalidated them mathematically. On the other hand, attraction at a distance provides an incomparable explanation of phenomena, but has left a gaping hole in our understanding of the law's material anchorage in bodies, and ultimately sends the question of how the system works back to God. He then set out to overcome the dichotomy established by these two authors, drawing on the Cartesian adage ''give me matter and I'll make a world'', but applying Newton's laws to cosmogenesis. In concrete terms, interplanetary space currently contains no matter capable of explaining the motion of the stars, we need to look further back into the system's past, to find an earlier state of material dispersion whose effects are still being felt. He must assume the existence of a cloud of dust, made up of the simplest elements and moved by the forces of attraction and repulsion alone. From this, Kant can form the hypothesis of the primitive nebula breaking down first into a phase of stellogenesis, and then into the creation of an accretion disk gradually forming the planets and their satellites.