Summary

Abstract

The System proposed here is constructed on conclusions derived from specific Standpoints with respect to two entirely different areas of inquiry: epistemology and ontology. All ontologies presuppose clear epistemological principles, whereas epistemology yields a series of imphcations for ontology without an explicit ontological thesis being a precondition for epistemological studies. Although such an interconnection does exist between the two disciplines, the specific subject matter of each makes it distinct from the other. Epistemology may be charac-terized brief ly as the theory of knowledge, an inquiry into the relation of thinking to being; and ontology as the theory of reality, dealing with being qua being, with fundamental principles and categories, examining among other questions the temporal priority between thought and being (also as spirit and nature, soul and matter).₁ The epistemological standpoint of our System is sceptical idealism, starting with the prime assumption “to be is to be perceived.” From this it follows that no object may exist without a subject, but this strict rule of infer-ence may be modified to State that no knowledge (in a direct and absolute sense) of unperceived objects is possible. Whether we are content to let matters rest here, or whether we probe the outside limits of our understanding, notwithstanding lack of füll certainty, is a matter of personal decision.