Hägerström, studying philosophy under the neo-Boströmian professor Erik Olof Burman, did not become exceedingly influenced by Boström’s system of idealism, which Hägerström held to be more logically consistent than other idealistic systems, perhaps with exception kept for the system of his philosophical idol Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).31The idealistic tendency of Hägerström’s early philosophy was also different from Boström’s speculative metaphysical philosophy. This difference manifests itself in the fact that Hägerström’s early philosophy undeniably has a critical idealistic tendency.This is directly traceable to the philosophies of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, rather than to the speculative idealism of Boström.32 Furthermore, Hägerström described his own philosophical awakening by reference to his reading of Erik Olof Burman’s Kants kunskapslära in1887, which together with a reading of Critique of Pure Reason, woke Hägerström from his dogmatic slumber to the philosophy of Kant, which from then on became the dominant philosophical source of influence to Hägerström.33 A further indication that Kant was Hägerström’s philosophical inspiration, rather than Boströmet al., is to be found in the unsparing judgment that Hägerström passed (in a letter in 1897 to his fiancé Esther Nyander [1872-1957]) upon contemporary Swedish philosophy, which was still cast in a Boströmian form, as being nothing but false and full of fraud.34 Hägerström’s own acclaim of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy constitutes the natural point of departure from which any description of Hägerström’s philosophy must start, for as far as Hägerström saw it himself, it was the search of solutions to the problems inherent in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason that set Hägerström’s philosophical development in motion.This development evenp a r t i 1 , c h a p t e r 1 44 31 Marc-Wogau, Studier till Axel Hägerströms filosofi, p. 16. See alsoWaller, Axel Hägerström, pp. 128, 160-161, and 170-171. 32 Marc-Wogau, Studier till Axel Hägerströms filosofi, p. 16. 33 Hägerström, Selbstdarstellungen, pp. 1-5. 34 Waller, Axel Hägerström, pp. 170-171. 1. 2 häge r ström’s ideal i sm
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