such as that between knowledge and objects and the distinction between truth and things. Hägerström’s distinction between knowledge and objects furthermore grants him license to dispense with the ultimate aims of metaphysical philosophy, which on the one hand, is the transcendent quest for, and the establishment of, the “true”, “proper”, and “perfect” thing and nature of things, and on the other, a corresponding conceptual enterprise. Hägerström thus refrains from going beyond physical reality when investigating and determining physical reality. He further refrains from establishing what specific things (due to their adherence to an implicit but nevertheless given set of values ostensibly conferring reality to the objects in question) are real per se. By dispensing with the transcendent metaphysics of such an enterprise, Hägerström does not have to ask what these specific reality-conferring values are, values that according to metaphysics define when a certain object attains true reality, in contrast with when an object only attains the lesser degree of actual, factual reality. The need for the preservation and maintenance of a two-world ontology is thus made superfluous. Hägerström’s ontology is founded upon a logicistic concept of reality, and consequently its highest principle is the concept of logical determinateness.The common denominator between the concept of reality and the concept of logical determinateness is their common logical origin, namely the principle of identity. In fact, Hägerström’s concepts of ontology and epistemology are respectively constructed with the fundamental laws of thought in mind, laws that in turn make up the systematic basis of his philosophy. In conclusion, the fundamental laws of thought (laws of logic) make up the common identity of the ontological and p a r t i i i , c h a p t e r 4 230 4 . 1 häge r ström’s ontology: a log ici st ic conce pt of real i ty - the princi ple of ident i ty
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