Background
SEGERSTEDT, Torgny was born on August 11, 1908 in Mellerud. Son of Professor Torgny and Augusta Segerstedt.
historian philosopher sociologist theorist
SEGERSTEDT, Torgny was born on August 11, 1908 in Mellerud. Son of Professor Torgny and Augusta Segerstedt.
Lund University.
Assistant Professor, in Moral Philosophy, Lund University 1934-1938. Professor, of Moral Philosophy, Uppsala University 1938, of Sociology 1947, Dean of Faculty of Philosophy 1947-1954, Rector 78. Chairman Social Science Research Council.
Chairman University Commission 63. Chairman Bank of Sweden Research Council 1965-1974. Commander; Commander of the.
Main publications:(1934) Value and Reality in Bradley’s Philosophy, Lund: Gleerup (dissertation).(1935) The Problem of Knowledge in Scottish Philosophy: Reid—Stewart—Hamilton—Perrier, Lund: Acta Universitatis Lundensis.(1937) Moral sense-skolan och dess inflytande pà svensk Jilosoft [The Moral Sense School and its Influence on Swedish Philosophy], Lund: Acta Universitatis Lundensis.(1938) Verklighet och varde. Inledning till en socialpsykologisk vardeteori [Reality and Value: Introduction to a Social-psychological Theory of Value], Lund: Glerup.(1938) Frihel och manniskovdrde [Freedom and Human Dignity], Lund: Gleerup.(1944) Ordens makt. En studie i sprakets psykologi [The Power of Words
A Study in the Psychology of Language], Lund
second edition, Uppsala: Argos, 1968 (German translation. Die Macht des Wortes. Eine Sprachsoziologie, New York: European Sociology Series, 1975).(1966) The Nature of Social Reality: An Essay in the Epistemology of Empirical Sociology, Stockholm: Svenska Boklorlaget Bonniers.(1986-1992) Svenska Akademien i sin samtid. En idehistorisk studie [The Swedish Academy in its Time. A Study in the History ofldeas] I III. Stockholm: Norstedts.Secondary literature:(1978) Universitet i utveckling: Uppsala Universitet under Torgny T. Segerstedls rektorat 1955-1978 [University in Development: Uppsala University under the Presidency of Torgny T. Segerstedt 1955-1978], Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis (contains a bibliography).
Among the philosophers who influenced Segerstedt's early philosophical views are G. H. Mead and Ernst Cassirer. Behaviourist social psychology affected his views on the mechanisms ol language, for example in The Power of Words (1944). In Reality and Value (1938) Segerstedt maintains a relativistic epistemology according to which truth is relative be a community of language, and urges that immediate experience of reality coincides with immediate experience of value.
In The Nature of Social Reality (1966) he examines ’which theoretical assumptions must be held, if sociology is to be possible as a social science’. According to Segerstedt the concept of a social group is ‘a theoretical construct, not a result of induction, but a general model'. He combines his sociologically oriented theory of knowledge and valuation with an individualistic humanism in ethics, often referring to Kant’s principle of personality and doctrine of the Wiirde of man.
An important part of Segerstedt’s research considers the history of philosophy and the history of ideas.
Some of his early writings, deal with British philosophy and some with French philosophy. None the less most of his works in these fields concern Swedish themes, for example The Moral Sense School (1937), his books on the history of academic freedom, and his momnumental work (1986-1992) on the Swedish history of ideas as mirrored in the Swedish Academy during the years 1786-1936.
Swedish Academy.
History of philosophy.
G. H. Mead and Ernst Cassirer. Later Margenau, Braithwaite.
Married Marie Louise Karling in 1934.