that which we can apprehend empirically (even though realism in some of its sub-forms purports that it is possible to apprehend the object in itself). In fact, the qualified object of realism is by its very nature completely unintelligible, but yet, some how, accessible to apprehension, which amounts to nihilism.349 Epistemological idealism and realism thus make all determinations of knowledge arbitrary, because in neither case does correspondence exist between mind and matter. In the idealistic case, the mind will never reach beyond itself and its own capabilities whereby all cognition of things will run the risk of becoming fantasies - solipsism. In the realistic case the criterion for truth, the thing in itself, will not be accessible for the mind nor be an object for, or of, thought - nihilism.350 Hägerström’s definitions of subjective idealism and realism helps to explain why the ontological propositions of metaphysical philosophy, that is, that reality is thought or that reality is the thing in itself, cause its unsatisfactory epistemology. If one accepts Hägerström’s definition of propositions (sentences referring to something as being real) - non-contradictory and self-identical - then the conclusion is that it is impossible to gain objective knowledge in the metaphysical manner.The reason is twofold. First, objective knowledge in the metaphysical manner requires that contradictions can be united into logically coherent concepts. Second, objective knowledge in the metaphysical sense requires that the gap separating physical things from metaphysical things, and thus separating epistemological objects from epistemological subjects, must be bridged - which neither idealism nor the realism manages to do.351 If reality is defined from an epistemological standpoint, the problem of universals is dissolved into an illusory one. A concept (connotation) is thereby not confused by those things correspona ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 153 349 Ibid., pp. 6-7. 350 Ibid., pp. 1-5. 351 Cf. ibid., pp. 5-7.
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