skepticism.54 Kant’s judgment over the faults of philosophy is not entirely different from Hägerström’s judgment over Kant’s philosophy, namely that it amounted to nihilism.According to Hägerström, the nihilistic consequence of Kant’s philosophy is due to his uncritical supposition that a judgment can set the sensible objects in absolute opposition, in absolute contradiction to consciousness, and to do so without giving rise to epistemological difficulties.55 Hägerström concludes that Kant’s theory does not survive critical scrutiny. The inherent flaw of Kant’s philosophy is that it necessarily results in epistemological nihilism, undermining both the validity of empirical knowledge and rational knowledge. By undermining the validity of rational knowledge Kant’s philosophy undermined the basic provisions for valid human knowledge and coherent thought - that is, the fundamental laws of thought,56 namely the law of identity, the law of contradictions and the law of the excluded third. Hägerström’s conclusion (and others) that Kant’s theory opens up for epistemological nihilism, must have created considerable problems for Hägerström, especially if one bears in mind that at the time he was trying to establish a secure foundation for objective knowledge on a Kantian footing. In an attempt to remedy the nihilistic deficiency of Kant’s philosophy, Hägerström tries to identify the real mistake in Kant’s chain of thought, but proceeds uncritically as he does so with the mental reservation that this analysis must be performed without abandoning Kant’s principle of : “- des transzendentalen Bewußtseins als des einzigen allgemeinen und notwendigen Bewußtseins und als des absolut Zugänglichen, jeder Objektivität der Erkenntnis als durch die Erkenntnis der Ursynthese dieses Bewußtseins von dem sinnlichVorhanden gegeben.”57 a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 51 54 Ibid. 55 Hägerström, Selbstdarstellungen, pp. 2-3. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid., p. 3.
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