For Hägerström, epistemological objectivity has its (primary) basis in the perceived object, but Hägerström’s objectivism neither limits nor restricts the independence of consciousness in its quest for objective knowledge. On the contrary, Hägerström allows both mind and matter to be present simultaneously in this quest even though he (as yet) gave neither of them definite priority.142 One underlying postulate of Hägerström’s philosophy is that even though both mind and matter have an inner quality of objectivity, the two are governed by different sets of rules that respectively determine objectivity.The mind is governed by logic, while matter is governed by causality. Hence, it is not possible to decide a priori whether one or the other should have absolute priority. A frequent mistake of philosophy is the propensity to see reality and knowledge from an unduly formalistic perspective. The danger of such an over-formalistic disposition of philosophy is that it runs the risk of leaving science with nothing but empty formal categories, classes, connotations, and definitions thus failing to designate a single material member of a class, or to provide a single denotation of a connotation. Three different interpretations of the meaning of Hägerström’s Copernican revolution, will now be addressed. 1. According to Martin Fries, Hägerström’s Copernican revolution involves a theory stating that that which is immediately given in our knowledge is not consciousness itself, but reality as to its own concept immediately identical with itself.143 Consequently, objective knowledge relates and refers primarily to reality (as a self-identical concept) for both its content and certainty a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 79 142 Hägerström, Selbstdarstellungen, p. 5. 143 Fries, Verklighetsbegreppet, pp. 401-402. 2 . 10 the cope rnican revolut ion: the se lf- ident i ty of real i ty
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