that Hägerström discusses the probability that future observations actually possess content coherent with the inductively established concept itself. This does not mean that the concepts themselves are to be regarded as objectively pre-existent to inductive determination; the concepts, on the contrary, are determined via induction, by the subjects, on the basis of actual observation of the objects.286 Hence, in order to inductively establish which of Hägerström’s theories of induction he harbored we must proceed systematically and investigate and answer those question that may define the metaphysical and the antimetaphysical standpoint respectively. To begin:A. Induction is based upon empirical data and refers only to empirical data (even if its conclusions tend to reach beyond the observed, that is, tend to synthesize knowledge).This statement is based upon the observation that Hägerström restricts the inductive method to experience and sets perceptions as the ultimate standard for the determination of whether or not perception gives real knowledge of an object.287 Since Hägerström argues, on the one hand, that induction itself must rely on perception, and on the other, that methodological induction creates knowledge on a scientific level, allowing the observer to approach the specific reality which the observer simultaneously invariably presupposes, he thus endows induction and perception with equal epistemological status.288 Through induction we infer several crucial conclusions of reality: that our universe, our physical reality, constitutes a coherent continuum in which objects continue to exist even when they are not perceived, and that observed regularities a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 133 4 . 2 . 4 a. induct ion i s based upon emp i rical data and re fe r s only to emp i rical data 286 Hägerström, “B. o. F.,” pp. 78-95. 287 Hägerström, “Relativitetsteori och kunskapsfilosofi,” in Filosofi och vetenskap, pp. 205-208. 288 Ibid., pp. 206-207 and 210-211.
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