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iv. education and . mental culture.
philosophy, are rarely rivalled in the reasonable purity of their pervading tone,
and in an uncompromising adherence to the fundamental idea of the
self-determination of the individual. The philosophical point of view of Boström
has had a powerful influence upon the higher spiritual life of Sweden, and
continued for a long time to rule well-nigh absolute within his own science.
Owing to various conditions, the national Swedish philosophy long failed
to reach results corresponding to the significance of its inherent ideas. Such
deep preparatory investigations as must form the basis of a philosophical
structure, now far more than hitherto, have been published by Swedish thinkers
only to a limited extent. To this we might ascribe the fact that Swedish
philosophy has not been able to hold its own so successfully against naturalistic
tendencies as might be expected from its scientific resources. In this respect
however a change seems to be in progress. Hopes of a stronger influence from
philosophy on intellectual life are bound up pre-eminently with the name of
Vitalis Norström. Yet, the so-called "Boström" school has achieved an important
task in philosophy, and has developed the master’s principles in many directions.
Among the representatives of this school who have worked in intimate connection
with the original form of the Boström system may especially be mentioned the
names S. Ribbing (1816—99), C. Y. Sahlin (b. 1824), K. Claëson (1827—59),
and H. Edfeldt (1836—1909), the two former, professors, the two latter docents
at Uppsala university, and the Lund professors, A. Nyblaeus (1821—99), and
P. J. H. Leander (1831—1907).
Among these, Ribbing, by his learned and original work Plato’s Doctrine
of Ideas (also in a German translation), and Socratic Studies, which must still
be given weight to by foreign philosophy, has revealed the close intellectual
kinship of national Swedish philosophy with Greek idealism. Nyblaeus has
traced the development of Swedish philosophy, from the close of the 18th century
to Boström inclusive, in an ambitious, but unfortunately unfinished work, written
in an elegant and easy style (Philosophical Investigation in Sweden). Sahlin,
the notable reformer and developer of the Boström philosophy, has with great
penetration treated its various parts, and thus endowed it with richness, and
has above all bestowed on it systematic demonstration and scientific shape.
Leander, though always a supporter of the Boström system in principle, has
endeavoured to overcome its fundamental weakness, by reconstructing the doctrine
of ideas.
P. Wikner (1837—88), an immediate discipleo f Boström and a brilliant
thinker and writer, stands apart from these groups, and has followed the special
paths of his sensitive and religious mind. By his work, "Egenskapen och
närgränsande tankeföremål" (Properties and nearly allied Conceptions), he deviated
materially from his master, and the breach was widened still further by later
productions.
V. Rydberg (1828—95), as shown by the entire spirit of his all-round
literary activity, and especially by the ideal and personal direction shown in
his philosophical writings, came near to the Boström tendency. More than
anybody else, he has promoted the spread within wide circles of the essential spirit
and general comprehension of life in Swedish idealism.
The work of Swedish philosophy within recent years displays, on the whole,
the same unwillingness to erect systems and the same spirit of division as the
philosophy of other countries. It is true that a large number of thinkers have a
common starting-point in the school of Boström, with which they are historically
in continuity, but they have in some cases travelled on widely divergent paths.
Among these thinkers are E. 0. Burman (b. 1845) and E. R. Geijer (b.
1849), both professors at Uppsala; L. H. Åberg (1851—95), docent; prof. F. v.
Schéele (b. 1853), at present chief inspector of elementary schools in Stockholm;
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