“determinateness”).190 The terms Selbstidentität and Bestimmtheit have two fundamental meanings. First, determinateness entails that something is a conceivable, non-contradictory object (the fact that this specific object is, in one, and only one, way).191 As a synonym to “determinateness” Hägerström also uses the term “non-contradictoriness”.192 Second, being determinate entails that an object is unequivocally demarcated from all other objects.193 This implies that the object, by virtue of being demarcated, necessarily has a definite relationship to every other object.194 The determinate existences of the different relations and relationships of the concepts therefore depend upon the demarcation of an object from other objects, which implies that a definition, the epistemological counterpart to demarcation, in part must be determined by the qualities of the defined object itself (which opens up a realistic interpretation of Hägerström’s theory). However, this does not mean that the definition is an exclusively object-dependent act.The definition should rather be seen as an act that merely strives to establish correspondence between the subjective and objective,195 and doing so by delimiting a specific object or term from other objects and terms in a determinate manner, thus providing a logical sense of order to the things.196 a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 95 190 Hägerström, Selbstdarstellungen, p. 18. 191 Marc-Wogau, Studier till Axel Hägerströms filosofi, p. 57. 192 Ibid. 193 Ibid. 194 Ibid. 195 Cf. Hägerström, “B. o. F.,” pp. 80-95. 196 This, however, does not entail that a definition must result in an “objective” definition, a stipulative definition may suffice. However, if one uses a stipulative definition this definition is held to be true (regardless of its actual truth value) within a certain context. One might even say that the stipulative definition is a fiction (since it cannot be falsified within this context) or a dogma (since its truth value is irrelevant). Finally, a definition may lack objective content and reality and thus lack objective truth value, but nevertheless still claim to have an objective truth value that reaches beyond the context in which it is used, but in this case, the definition is of no scientific use or value, since it does not refer to reality, in an unambiguous
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=