Not Even Ideal : Kant on Absolute Time and Gödel’s Rotating Universes

In this Chapter, the concept of time is analyzed in a particular set of solutions of Einstein Field Equations that was proposed by Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) in 1949 and 1952. The rotating universe model has been largely inspired by Gödel’s reading of Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) in which Kant provided an argument for the relativity of motion of reference frames and for the rejection of absolute time in cosmology. After presenting Gödel’s analysis of Kant’s notion of time in his manuscripts, I shall show which aspects of Kant’s philosophy had an impact on Gödel’s view. Finally, I shall conclude by showing that Gödel’s critical reading of Kant’s theory knowledge did not take into account his late work and therefore could not comment on core ideas of Kant’s late cosmology embodied by the dictum ‘forma dat esse rei.’ Indeed, in the Opus postumum Kant appealed to the concept of cosmic aether as hypostatized space and provided an argument for distinguishing the notion of cosmic local time, which is necessary for the description of the observable universe, from an a priori account of the cosmos as a whole.