Kant and extragalactic revolution in astronomy
In this paper we briefly consider the role Kant's early philosophy, and notably his "island universes" hypothesis played in the history of astronomy. There are many reasons for this, including the coincidence of Kant's jubilee year with 80 years since Hubble's discovery (1924) of the extragalactic universe. This discovery, confirming the "island universes" hypothesis revolutionized our picture of the physical universe. Prehistory of this revolution has another aspect, apart from the historical one, of significance for philosophy: it presents one of the best supported and empirically documented instances of the application of the Duhem-Quine thesis on subdetermination of theory by experiments.
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1802 ◽
Vol 12
(46)
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pp. 112-121
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1986 ◽
Vol 19
(3)
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pp. 347-348
1807 ◽
Vol 28
(110)
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pp. 121-129
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1991 ◽
Vol 21
(2)
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pp. 315-316