Axel Hägerström
Encyclopedia
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
philosopher and jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
.
Born in Vireda, Jönköping County
Jönköping County
Jönköping County is a county or län in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Halland, Västra Götaland, Östergötland, Kalmar and Kronoberg. The capital is Jönköping.- Provinces :...
Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, he was the son of a Church of Sweden
Church of Sweden
The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The church professes the Lutheran faith and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,589,769 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of...
pastor. As student at Uppsala University
Uppsala University
Uppsala University is a research university in Uppsala, Sweden, and is the oldest university in Scandinavia, founded in 1477. It consistently ranks among the best universities in Northern Europe in international rankings and is generally considered one of the most prestigious institutions of...
, he gave up theology for a career in philosophy. Teaching there from 1893 until his retirement in 1933, he attacked the then dominant philosophical idealism of the followers of Christopher Jacob Boström
Christopher Jacob Boström
Christopher Jacob Boström was a Swedish philosopher, regarded by some as Sweden's greatest. His ideas dominated Swedish philosophy until the beginning of the twentieth century...
(1797-1866). He is best known as a founder of the (quasi-) positivistic Uppsala school of philosophy - the Swedish counterpart of the anglo-American Analytical Philosophy as well as of the Logical Positivism of the Vienna Circle - and as the founder of the Scandinavian legal realism movement.
Some of his work was published by the Muirhead Library of Philosophy
Muirhead Library of Philosophy
The Muirhead Library of Philosophy was an influential series which published some of the best writings of twentieth century philosophy. The original programme was drawn up by John Muirhead and published in Erdmann's History of Philosophy in 1890...
.
He was Inspektor
Inspektor
Inspektor, Swedish for Inspector, is the largely honorary chairmanship of a student nations in Lund and Uppsala universities in Sweden. The Inspector has a supervisory role his/her nation and presides over most important functions. It is a quite prestigious role to be invited to undertake as it...
of the Östgöta nation
Östgöta nation (Uppsala)
Östgöta nation or ÖG, as it is called informally, is a student society and one of thirteen nations at Uppsala University. Though Östgöta nation had existed in various forms previously, the nation's constitution was formed 8 November 1646 and is now considered its official date of creation.The...
from 1925 to his retirement in 1933.
Contribution to legal understanding
The jurisprudential camp of legal realismLegal realism
Legal realism is a school of legal philosophy that is generally associated with the culmination of the early-twentieth century attack on the orthodox claims of late-nineteenth-century classical legal thought in the United States...
, broadly speaking, consists of those scholars who strictly reject the concept of natural law and who believe that legal concepts, terminology and values should be based on experience, observation and experimentation and are thus, ‘real’. This empirical, or sceptical, view taken by the ‘realists’ can be contrasted with a more rational view taken by others, such as H.L.A. Hart, the English philosopher, who took a more formalistic approach and had the opinion that such concepts can survive through the application of a priori reasoning or logic only.
Hägerström is considered to be the founding father of the Scandinavian school of legal realism. His disciples Karl Olivecrona
Karl Olivecrona
Karl Olivecrona was a Swedish lawyer and legal philosopher: He studied law at Uppsala from 1915 to 1920 and was a pupil of Axel Hägerström, the spiritual father of Scandinavian legal realism. One of the internationally best-known Swedish legal theorists, Olivecrona was a professor of procedural...
, Alf Ross
Alf Ross
Alf Niels Christian Ross was a Danish legal and moral philosopher and scholar of international law. He is best known as one of the leading exponents of Scandinavian Legal Realism....
and Anders Vilhelm Lundstedt
Anders Vilhelm Lundstedt
Anders Vilhelm Lundstedt was a Swedish jurist and legislator, particularly known as a proponent of Scandinavian Legal Realism, having been strongly influenced by his compatriot, the charismatic philosopher Axel Hägerström. He studied Law at Lund University and was a professor of law at the...
all take a similar basic view to Hägerström in their opinions on the language of Western law
Western law
Western law refers to the legal traditions of Western culture. Western culture has an idea of the importance of law which has its roots in both Roman law and the Bible...
. Due to their verdict on natural law, they also reject the concept of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
.
Hägerström, who had been influenced by the Neo-Kantianism of the Marburg school, rejected metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
in their entirety. His motto was: "Praeterea censeo metaphysicam esse delendam", paraphrasing
Paraphrase
Paraphrase is restatement of a text or passages, using other words. The term "paraphrase" derives via the Latin "paraphrasis" from the Greek , meaning "additional manner of expression". The act of paraphrasing is also called "paraphrasis."...
Cato's
Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius , Sapiens , Priscus , or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some...
famous "delenda Carthago
Carthago delenda est
"Carthago delenda est" or the fuller "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam" or "Ceterum autem censeo, Carthaginem esse delendam" are Latin political phrases which were popular in the Roman Republic during the latter years of the Punic Wars against Carthage...
". His opinion was that words such as ‘right’ and ‘duty’ were basically meaningless as they could not be scientifically verified or proven. They may have influence or be able to direct a person who obtains such a right or duty but ultimately, if they could not stand up to a factual test, they were mere fantasies. Similarly, Hägerström regarded all value judgements as mere emotional expressions using the form of judments without being judgments in the proper sense of the word. This position caused Hägerströms critics to characterize his philosophy as "value nihilism" - a label that was invented by journalists and later endorsed by some of Hägerström's less orthodox followers, namely Ingmar Hedenius.
Hägerström attacked various words and legal concepts in his writings so as to prove they could not stand up to scientific application.
Publications
- Aristoteles etiska grundtankar och deras teortiska förutsättningar, Uppsala, Akamemiska boktrykeriet, E. Berling, 1893
- 'Axel Hägerström', Filosofiskt lexikon, ed Alfred Ahlberg, Natur och Kultur, Third edition, 1951
- Philosophy and Religion, (1964), English translation by Robert T. Sandin
- Inquiries into the Nature of Law and Morals, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, ed. Karl OlivecronaKarl OlivecronaKarl Olivecrona was a Swedish lawyer and legal philosopher: He studied law at Uppsala from 1915 to 1920 and was a pupil of Axel Hägerström, the spiritual father of Scandinavian legal realism. One of the internationally best-known Swedish legal theorists, Olivecrona was a professor of procedural...
, transl. C. D. Broad.