Christopher Jacob Boström

Christopher Jacob Boström (1 January 1797 in Piteå, Norrbotten – 22 March 1866 in Uppsala) was a Swedish philosopher.

[citation needed] As a student he briefly studied theology, and religion remained his primary interest throughout his life.

[3] Reality is presented only as spiritual: God as an absolute, self-conscious unity, in which all living beings are eternally and unchangeably contained, according to degree.

The highest aim of humanity should be the conduct and behavior according to reason in harmony with the Divine; that of the state, like the individual should exist solely in God, and in its most perfect form should consist in the harmonious obedience of all its members to a constitutional monarch; while ultimate perfection should be an all-embracing system of such states governed in obedience to Universal Reason.

The first task of philosophical science must be to produce the most general concepts whereby to define absolute reality.

Personally, Boström characterizes his philosophy as the consistent execution of the principle of rational idealism—i.e., the principle of that världsåsikt (worldview or metaphysics) according to which absolute reality is free from all the imperfections of spatiotemporal existence (finitude, divisibility, transience, change).

This self-consciousness — which Boström identifies with life—can thus not be conceived as attached to a substrate or a substance, but is precisely what is primary and original in everything.

I contrast to the Hegelian notion of an original abstract, empty self-consciousness which, through sensible reality, actualizes itself into a fully conscious and determined (concrete) spirit, Boström maintains that the absolute person is primordial and eternally fully determined.

On the other hand, He is also — due to the perfect organic coherence that obtains in the absolute world — fully present in them, without in the least obstructing their independent life.