Judgments of Perception vs. Judgments of Experience

In the second part of the book Kant talks about the distinction between judgments of perception and judgments of experience. Judgments of perception combine together all our empirical thoughts and are only subjectively valid. So take the example of how I might notice that the sun is shining and then realize how the rock is warm. I might come to the conclusion that because the sun is shining the rock is warm, though this is valid only for me at this specific time.

Then Kant goes into talking about judgments of experience, these apply “concepts of the understanding” to judgments of perception. This is taking the previous example and taking it one step further, by adding cause to the argument it allows for us to be able to understand natural laws. Like before the sun is warm which in turn causes the rock to heat up and feel warm. Kant then goes on to say that we use judgments of experience to structure how we understand experience. Kant goes into talking about how judgments of experience are a priori concepts we combine together to understand our judgments and that these a priori laws allow for natural science to exist.