identity, and tertium non datur) are valid, but to idealism the problem is that it has repeatedly denied the validity of the laws of thought. One particularly illuminating example is that idealism argues that even want of reality must be real under certain circumstances, in other words that non-reality is reality.173 The acceptance of an “inner experience” as an epistemic principle is based upon the factual existence of empirical self-consciousness as an immediate “inner experience”, which in turn is an expression of the theory that the “inner experience” possesses absolute value for knowledge.174 Moreover, according to Hägerström, a distinctive feature of proper science is that it, by the use of objectively valid reasons, tries to raise itself above that which is subjectively immediate, and does so regardless of the intuitively very persuasive appearance of subjective or inner experiences.175 (Cf. the Copernican Revolution in philosophy, see Part II) The “inner experience” or “emotive thinking” appears to be the source of the anthropomorphisms that occur frequently in human thinking.176 Unless active measures were taken to suppress these aforementioned tendencies, Hägerström’s fears were that the anthropomorphisms of dogmatic subjectivism would have adverse effects on scientific thinking as well as on every other aspect of human thought, eventually discrediting science, as “inner experience” and “emotive thinking” both entail an anthropomorphic construction of reality that adversely affects the objective, scientific determination of reality.This is primarily because the inclusion of value in the scientific analysis makes it subjective - for instance, moral and religious feelings refer to ideas in which the subjective self and consciousness, the feeling or inner experience, rather than the object, play decisive roles.177 p a r t i i i , c h a p t e r 3 226 173 Hägerström, Till analysen, pp. 54-55. Cf. Hägerström, “Filosofien som vetenskap,” passim. 174 Hägerström, Till analysen, p. 55. My italics. Cf. Hägerström, “Relativitetsteori och kunskapsfilosofi,” pp. 208-213 and 221-230. 175 Hägerström, Till analysen, p. 55. 176 Ibid., pp. 78-79. 177 See ibid.
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