reconstruction’s rational character, were nevertheless in accordance with the objective facts as known by Copernicus and his contemporaries, and it was this correspondence between hypothesis and facts that validated the hypothesis, rather than the coherence of the inner validity of the hypothesis itself.126 (Leaving aside all subsequent advances in astronomy). According to Hägerström, his epistemological revolution helped refute epistemological idealism without simultaneously taking refuge in epistemological realism.127 It is important to keep in mind Hägerström’s distance to idealism, as well as to realism, when reading him, as he considered them as equally invalid philosophical doctrines (and used the term subjectivism indiscriminately when referring to them).128 On the one hand, idealism involves the underlying ontological statement that reality as such is nothing but a creation of the mind, thus determining objective reality by means of the mind alone. Hence, existence is attributable to nothing less than the determinations of individual consciousness.129 According to idealistic ontology, the mind is the foundation and nature of knowledge, which is thus subjectively founded.130 a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 75 126 Cf. ibid., pp. 21-26. 127 Ibid., pp. 6-7.The question of whether Axel Hägerström’s Copernican Revolution really was a revolutionary philosophical event or not has been discussed by Jes Bjarup. Bjarup, Reason, pp. 96-186. Bjarup holds opinion that Hägerström’s revolution is a revolution in name only, and that Hägerström only restated and upheld both the principles of idealism and materialism(!) respectively, and that he neither brought them together nor added anything new to the annals of philosophical research. I am however of the opinion that the mere feat of carrying out such a leap of logic as Bjarup attributed to Hägerström’s ideas in order to uphold both idealism and realism at the same time in itself must be not only something newsworthy but also truly revolutionary. Since this feat of Hägerström indeed must have turned the doctrines of applied logic on their heads. 128 Hägerström, Selbstdarstellungen, pp. 6-7. 129 Ibid., p. 7; Fries, Verklighetsbegreppet, p. 44. 130 Hägerström, Selbstdarstellungen, p. 7. 2 . 8 re futat ion of e p i stemolog ical ideal i sm
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