Christopher Jacob Boström

Born Jan. 1, 1797, in Piteo; died Mar. 22, 1866, in Uppsala. Swedish philosopher of the idealistic school; professor of Uppsala University.

Boström developed his system of personal idealism under the influence of I. Kant and H. Hegel. Self-knowledge is the basis of his philosophy; hence, philosophy is the science of personality (Aphorisms on the Soul and on Perceptions, 1939). The world of phenomena, or spatiotemporal objects, which are part of experience, is opposed by the world of “things by themselves,” or ideas (in the Platonic meaning of the word), culminating in God and known only rationally. The schism between the two forms of cognition contravenes the concept of a dual existence according to which ideas can also have spatial and temporal being. He denied the concept of development. Society, according to Boström, exists on two levels, the private (family) and the general (the people); society is contrary to the interests of private persons and guards its interests through the state, whose ideal form he believes to be constitutional hereditary monarchy. Boström’s philosophy had a considerable influence in Sweden in the second half of the 19th century.