sets into an objective connection with one another. For instance, consciousness itself is unable to adhere to all of an object’s determinations which forces consciousness to reflect upon only a few of the object’s determinations simultaneously.168 It must be added that the abstraction that the subject is forced to perform in a judgment can under no circumstances itself be absolutely abstracted from physical reality. Such an act of abstraction would transform the abstraction, from being descriptive, into to a mass of empty words, lacking determinable meaning and a real-world referent. Consequently, the abstraction must have material content.169 By describing abstraction in the aforementioned manner, Hägerström indicates that his theory of abstractions is relativistic, rather than absolute, as the temporal relativity ascribed to the abstractions above indicates that their content, at least intermittently, fluctuates. If the empirical self-consciousness is uncritically accepted by science as a guiding principle, then science will face similar problems as those encountered by idealistic and subjectivistic philosophy, with the risk that both the determination of empirical reality and the formulation of epistemological principles will become anthropomorphous rather than objective,170 which is a development that will eventually undermine the objectivity of science.171 Furthermore, to accept the empirical self-consciousness as a guiding principle elevates “inner experience” (Swedish: inre erfarenhet) to the supreme standard of knowledge.172 To accept “inner experience” as an epistemic principle assumes that the laws of thought (the law of contradictions, the law of a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 225 168 Hägerström, Till analysen, p. 77. 169 Hägerström, Selbstdarstellungen, p. 29. 170 Cf. Hägerström, Till analysen, pp. 78-79. 171 See, e.g., Hägerström, “Filosofien som vetenskap,”passim. 172 Cf. Hägerström, “Relativitetsteori och kunskapsfilosofi,” pp. 208-213. 3. 6 emp i rical se lf-consciousne s s : sci ent i f ic problems
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