Once the general meaning of induction has been determined, the construction and foundation of concepts must be dealt with. How are concepts validly constructed and formulated according to Hägerström’s philosophy? Are the concepts constructs at all? Are they pre-existent entities awaiting discovery by means of some special type of perception, such as intuition? Are concepts the effect of a special type of perception? Does Hägerström adhere to an idealistic, a realistic, a conceptualistic, or a nominalistic theory of universals? The fact that Hägerström, on the one hand, refers to determinateness as an indication of reality, and on the other, stresses the importance of conceptual analysis indicates his departure from idealistic, realistic, and nominalistic theories of universals, which are theories that do not depend upon conceptual analysis for the corroboration of concepts and universals. On the contrary, these theories depend upon some special kind of perception, such as intuition, for the corroboration and determination of the material validity of their concepts and universals. In idealism, the universals are nothing more than ideas independent of a spatio-temporal reality. In fact, ideas and concepts are not dependent upon factual instances for their veracity.325 In p a r t i 1 146 Concepts and Universals 6 . 1 ideal i sm, real i sm, nominal i sm, conce ptual i sm and the program of conce ptual analys i s chap te r 6 325 A Companion to Metaphysics, Kim and Sosa, eds., Idealism; A Companion to Epistemology, Dancy and Sosa, eds., Idealism. See also Fries, Verklighetsbegreppet, pp. 188-192.
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