Anton Martin Schweigaard

Who was Anton Martin Schweigaard?

Anton Martin Schweigaard was a Norwegian jurist and economic reformer.

Schweigaard was born on 11 April 1808 in Kragerø. He was a professor of jurisprudence and economics in the 1830s and 1840s and was an extremely influential publicist for economic liberalism. He is widely credited in helping bring about Norway's change to a capitalist economy. From 1842 to 1869, he was a member of the Norwegian Parliament. He died on 1 February 1870 in Christiania.

Schweigaard was radically opposed to the German jurisprudence and legal philosophy that had dominated Europe during the Enlightenment, including natural law. He believed that the stark dichotomies of conceptualism were misleading. Schweigaard figures prominently in Sverre Blandhol’s theory of Nordic legal pragmatism, along with Anders Sandøe Ørsted and Friedrich Karl von Savigny. In 1865, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Schweigaard's writings include: "Reflections on the Present State of Jurisprudence in Germany", published in Juridisk Tidsskrift in 1834 and "Om den tyske filosofi", published in the French periodical La France Littéraire in 1835.