Thinking of everything?

Kant speaks to Stephen Hawking

Leslie Stevenson

pp. 128-145

in: Roxana Baiasu, Graham Bird, A. W. Moore (eds), Contemporary Kantian metaphysics, Berlin, Springer, 2012

Abstract

Theoretical physicists have recently described themselves as aspiring to a "theory of everything'. But more than two centuries ago Kant offered in the Dialectic of his Critique of Pure Reason a systematic diagnosis of a certain kind of transcendental illusion about absolute totalities, an illusion to which we are prone whenever we try to think about the world as a whole. I propose to look afresh at Kant's thought and ponder its implications for contemporary cosmological theorizing, and, conversely, to ask whether modern science can throw any light on his dark musings.¹

Cited authors

Kant Immanuel

Hawking Stephen