From Kant to Hawking: A Journey into the Nature of Space-Time

Abstract

This study aims to examine the interaction between Immanuel Kant's philosophy of knowledge and Stephen Hawking's scientific approach, shaped by his work on the beginning of time and black holes, in fields such as cosmology and physics. In particular, it considers how these two perspectives shape our understanding of the nature of space and time. Kant recognizes space and time as the fundamental building blocks of the world we experience and argues that these concepts are the a priori categories of our minds. This duality leads to the conclusion that space and time are both transcendental ideals and empirical realities. According to Kant space and time, in which change takes place and which contain all the objects we experience, appear as a form of sensibility, not of the faculty of understanding. This view is incompatible with Newton's view that space and time are absolute entities. Kant argued that the early solar system consisted of a mass of gas and dust orbiting itself, and that this formation was deterministic. Laplace, acting independently and without Kant's awareness, advanced the principle of scientific determinism with the objective of establishing a comprehensive set of laws. In the context, Hawking and Penrose have developed a mathematical model based on the spherical nature of space and time. According to this model, space-time is not only bent inward by massive objects, but also by the density of energy in it, which bends rays inward and compresses them to zero in finite time. This supports the existence of a starting point for time. This approach provided evidence for an ontological problem posed by Kant regarding the nature of time. Although Hawking and Kant have different views on the nature of reality and the role of the human mind, they share a common understanding of the importance of models in understanding the workings of the universe. Although Hawking's view of model-based realism and Kant's epistemology offer different perspectives, they both emphasize that mental designs and models play an important role in our perception of reality and our interaction with the universe.