  This article looks at philosophical aspects and questions that modern
astrophysical research gives rise to. Other than cosmology, astrophysics
particularly deals with understanding phenomena and processes operating at
"intermediate" cosmic scales, which has rarely aroused philosophical interest
so far. Being confronted with the attribution of antirealism by Ian Hacking
because of its observational nature, astrophysics is equipped with a
characteristic methodology that can cope with the missing possibility of direct
interaction with most objects of research. In its attempt to understand the
causal history of singular phenomena it resembles the historical sciences,
while the search for general causal relations with respect to classes of
processes or objects can rely on the "cosmic laboratory": the multitude of
different phenomena and environments, naturally provided by the universe.
Furthermore, the epistemology of astrophysics is strongly based on the use of
models and simulations and a complex treatment of large amounts of data.
