Abstract

The paper focuses on the philosophy of the young Anton Martin Schweigaard, one of the most influential Norwegian politicians of the nineteenth century. It is argued that the often criticized arguments which Schweigaard presents against “German philosophy”, i.e. Kant and German idealism, bears close resemblance to arguments which may be found, not only in classical American pragmatism, but also in G.E. Moore. What Schweigaard more precisely is doing, it is argued, is to turn the arguments of the “German philosophers” on its head. Just as it is possible to argue, from the point of view of German philosophy, that Schweigaard’s empiricism approach presupposes conditions that cannot themselves be drawn from experience, it is possible to argue, from the point of view of Schweigaard, that the so-called “conditions of the possibility of experience” themselves must be drawn from experience.