Hume and Kant

Abstract

What is Kant's answer in Prolegomena on the question: “How is the Science of Nature possible?” Kant's answer to Hume's thesis that causality is not a relation between objects, but a relation that is made by our imagination on the basis of repeated experience is based on the distinction between judgements of perception and judgements of experience. For Hume, causal judgements are judgements of the first kind (judgements of perception) and repeated observed succession is necessary and sufficient for the imagination to make a judgement of causality. Kant has showed, with the help of the distinction between judgements of perception and experience, that observed repeated succession is necessary, but it is not sufficient and therefore causal judgements are, for Kant, synthetic a priori judgements.