The problem of induction in cosmology

Abstract

This article problematises a crucial assumption in the methodology of modern cosmology, namely the cosmological principle (CP). Given the physical obstacles and limits peculiar to cosmological observation, cosmological inferences ordinarily take the regularity readily observed in our region of space-time as a basis for the purported self-same regularity of physical processes characteristic of unobservable space-time regions. Just this projection of the locally familiar to the globally unfamiliar is of the essence of the CP. This inductive procedure, however, is beset by serious logical difficulties, an analysis of which is undertaken herein, and the strength of which, it is argued, may constitute grounds for tempering our confidence in cosmological inferences on the nature of the large-scale structure of space-time. The article, all the while, seeks to share in and communicate the excitement at the contributions and prospects of a distinctively philosophical engagement with the conceptual problems of mathematical and theoretical physics, an engagement that is at the very heart of contemporary philosophy of science.