Scandinavian Hegel Reception (1945-1989) — Continued
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Placing It
In Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Switzerland — Isolated Traces and Overlooked Schools we sketched the beginnings of Scandinavian Hegel reception up to 1945: the early reception in Denmark through Heiberg and Kierkegaard’s critical response, the Swedish tradition from Boström to Hägerström, the Norwegian beginnings. This volume must continue that story, even though Scandinavian reception never reached the intensity of the German, French, or Anglo-American reception.[1]
The Postwar Situation
The Scandinavian countries had different wartime experiences: Sweden neutral, Norway and Denmark occupied, Finland in a complex relationship with the Soviet Union. These different starting points also shaped the intellectual debates after 1945.
In all the Scandinavian countries, analytic philosophy dominated at first — even more strongly than in England or the United States. The Uppsala school (Hägerström, Hedenius) in Sweden, the Copenhagen group around Jørgen Jørgensen in Denmark, and the analytically oriented philosophers in Norway and Finland made Scandinavian philosophy a stronghold of logical empiricism and analytic metaethics.
In this climate, Hegel had a difficult standing. He was regarded as the opposite of everything analytic philosophy valued: speculative rather than clear, systematic rather than problem-oriented, metaphysical rather than scientific.
Counter-Currents: Existentialism and Marxism
Two movements partly broke through this dominance: existentialism and Marxism. Existentialism — mediated through Kierkegaard, who was after all of Scandinavian origin — gained influence in the 1950s and 1960s. Kierkegaard as anti-Hegelian was, paradoxically, a mediator toward Hegel: whoever understood Kierkegaard had to also know Hegel, against whom Kierkegaard had turned.
Marxism, especially in Norway and Denmark, likewise brought Hegel back — as a forerunner of Marx, as the source of dialectics. The student movement of 1968 had effects in Scandinavia too, and with it came renewed interest in critical theory, Marxism, and thereby indirectly in Hegel.
Jon Hellesnes and Norwegian Philosophy of Praxis
The most significant Scandinavian contribution to Hegel reception after 1945 came from Norway: Jon Hellesnes (b. 1939) developed, from the 1970s on, a “philosophy of praxis” that connected Hegel, Marx, and Wittgenstein.[2]
Hellesnes’s basic insight: philosophy is not theoretical contemplation, but reflection on practice. This connected him with pragmatism (Dewey), with Marx (the praxis philosophy of the Praxis group, → Chapter 11.5), but also with Hegel’s Phenomenology, which after all analyzes shapes of practical life.
His reception of Hegel was selective: he was more interested in the Hegel of the Phenomenology than in that of the Logic, more in the theorist of formation (Bildung) than in the systematist of the Absolute. This made his position accessible to Scandinavian readers who had difficulties with the “whole” Hegel.
Sweden: The Lund School
In Sweden, a center of Hegel research developed at the University of Lund — less well known than the German centers, but productive. Ingemar Hedenius (1908-1982), actually a representative of analytic philosophy, engaged critically with Hegel — the critique did not remain merely polemical, but led to a serious engagement.
Younger Swedish philosophers such as Sven-Olov Wallenstein (b. 1961) — whose main work, however, appeared only after 1989 — connected Hegel with French phenomenology and aesthetics.
Systematic Significance
Scandinavian Hegel reception shows: even in contexts hostile to Hegel, he could assert himself — though more slowly and selectively than elsewhere. The bridge was often indirect: through Kierkegaard, through Marx, through pragmatism.
For the overall history of Hegel reception, Scandinavia is more a marginal note than a main chapter. But precisely for that reason it is instructive: it shows that the Hegel renaissance was not a purely German or French phenomenon, but had global dimensions — even if it took different forms.
On the history of Scandinavian philosophy in general: Nils Gilje / Gunnar Skirbekk, A History of Norwegian Philosophy, Oslo 2001 (contains sections on Hegel reception). ↩︎
Jon Hellesnes, Sosialisering og teknokrati, Oslo: Gyldendal, 1975. An introduction to his philosophy of praxis. Unfortunately barely received in German. ↩︎