identity), thus facilitating the error that any conclusion can be inferred from a specific premiss. On the other hand, if an object or a concept is analyzed in accordance with a non-subjectivistic point of view, then one will discover a less subject-dependent standard of objectivity. Each thing must have its own, objective determinateness,which is what makes each thing discernable from everything else, namely, the principle of identity - a standard that is objective, not subjective (and a corollary to the “self ”).135 Hägerström applies the principle of identity as a tool to determine whether or not an object or condition is real, and consequently whether or not the corresponding judgment refers and corresponds to reality.As a matter of fact, this specific ontological principle tells us that it is the selfbeing of every object that necessarily exists independently of our notions and ideas about objects. It is thus not subjective consciousness’ own notions of this reality that are necessarily valid independently of reality. The only restriction in this respect is that the specific selfbeing predicated of an object is only accessible when the object itself is actually self-identical, which it only is when the principle of identity is applicable to that specific object.136 Selfbeing must thus exist in the object in order for the object to be real; selfbeing is not a mere subjective postulate, because selfbeing as such a postulate would have subjective rather than objective reality. The epistemological conclusion of Till analysen af det empiriska själfmedvetandet is that consciousness itself is always an organism’s reference to some thing that is perceived, namely the logical subject of a judgment.137 Nevertheless, it remains important to observe that the reference that Hägerström discusses constitutes a reference that does not contain the perceiving subject as the object of the reference.138 A reference can have different degrees of abstraction, but it can never itself be in abstracto. The reference p a r t i i i , c h a p t e r 3 214 135 Ibid., pp. 21-22. 136 Ibid., p. 29. 137 Ibid., p. 23. 138 Ibid.
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