Kant: natural science

Kant thinks the same thing about natural sciences that he thought about mathematics. He believed that synthetic a priori judgments form the foundation of natural science. Pure natural science is possible, according to Kant, because of the pure concepts of our faculty of understanding. These concepts give a law-like structure to our experiences (one, for example, is that every effect has a cause). Kant is sure to distinguish between judgments of perception and judgments of experience. A judgment of perception is based on a subjective sensation, while a judgment of experience attempts to draw objective, necessary truths from experience. Since science is an objective body of knowledge, it must rely upon objective laws (pure concepts of our faculty of understanding). These laws are just as much apart of our understanding as are the concepts of space and time. So pure natural science is possible for the same reasons that pure mathematics is possible--they rely on parts of our natural concepts.