An influential strand in philosophy of science claims that scientific paradigms can be understood as relativized a priori frameworks. Here, Kant’s constitutive a priori principles are no longer held to establish conditions of possibility for knowledge which are unchanging and universally true, but are restricted only to a given scientific domain. Yet it is unclear how exactly a relativized a priori can be construed as both stable and dynamical, establishing foundations for current scientific claims while simultaneously making intelligible the transition to a subsequent framework. In this article, I show that important resources for this problem have been overlooked in Kant’s theory of reflective judgement in the third Critique. I argue that Kant accorded the task of formulating new scientific laws to reflective judgement, which is charged with forming new ‘universals’ that guide the experience of nature. I show that this is the very task attributed to the relativized a priori: the constitution of a given conceptual framework, not of the conditions for object-reference as such. I conclude that Kant’s considered conception of science encompasses the operations of both reflective and determining judgement. Relativizations of the a priori should follow Kant’s lead.

科学哲学中一个有影响力的派别声称科学范式可以被理解为相对化的先验框架。在这里，康德的构成性先验原则不再被认为是为了建立不变的、普遍正确的知识的可能性条件，而是仅限于给定的科学领域。然而，目前尚不清楚相对化的先验究竟如何被解释为既稳定又动态，为当前的科学主张奠定基础，同时使向后续框架的过渡变得可理解。在这篇文章中，我表明康德第三批判中的反思判断理论忽视了解决这个问题的重要资源。我认为康德将制定新的科学定律的任务赋予了反思性判断，它负责形成指导自然经验的新“普遍性”。我表明，这正是相对化先验的任务：构建给定的概念框架，而不是构建对象引用本身的条件。我的结论是，康德深思熟虑的科学概念涵盖了反思性判断和决定性判断的运作。先验的相对化应该遵循康德的领导。