CoursesCourse 19
Cosmology: the starting point of philosophical thinking
Why does the idea of “the universe as a whole” lead to paradox? This course follows that question from Kant and Russell through time, the observer and Escher’s gallery, to the Greek cosmos, the Chinese sky, Newton’s endless space, and Einstein’s finite universe with no edge.
Start lesson 1Lessons
- 1 Is everything a thing?Add up everything that exists: is the total itself one more thing? Kant and Russell found that the question leads to paradox, and that is where the philosophy of the universe begins.
- 2 What the picture leaves outA map of the whole must contain the map, and the mapmaker. Time, the observer, and a gallery that hangs inside its own picture show how every picture of the universe leaves something out.
- 3 Cosmos in Greece, and the question about ChinaThe Greeks called the world a kosmos, an ordered, beautiful whole. Did China have one too? Weigh a bold claim against the evidence.
- 4 From the closed world to the infinite universe, and backA finite sphere of stars, then endless space, then Einstein’s finite universe with no edge: how the shape of the whole changed, and what we still do not know.
You’ll be able to
- State Kant’s first antinomy and Russell’s paradox, and explain why “everything” cannot be treated like one more thing.
- Explain the difference between a thing in a picture of the world and a condition for the picture, using time, the observer, and a map that must contain itself.
- Compare the Greek cosmos with the Chinese models of the sky, and weigh the claim that China had no cosmology against the evidence.
- Trace the story from Aristotle’s closed world through Newton’s infinite space to Einstein’s finite universe and the Big Bang, and say what is settled and what is still open.
About this course
This course covers 宇宙论：哲学思维的起点 (Cosmology: The Starting Point of Philosophical Thinking), a philosophical look at what “the universe” means and why the idea is harder to think than it seems. It stands beside three astronomy courses: The cosmos before Newton (Course 3), Newton’s clockwork universe (Course 4), and We are stardust (Course 7). Those courses tell what astronomers found. This one asks what kind of thing they were looking for. It also draws on Why science began in Greece (Course 1) and How science became useful (Course 2).
The argument and examples lead, and much of the argument is philosophy, not settled science. Around it we add the history, checked against primary sources, the views of other scholars where they differ, and hands-on activities. Where a claim is a thesis of this course, such as the claim that China never developed a cosmology in the Greek sense, we say so, and set the strongest evidence on the other side next to it.