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From 1907 he was an ordinary professor at the Department of Philosophy at Moscow University. Already in 1912, Chelpanov began to conduct psychological seminars in the building of the newly built institute, and in March 1914, the grand opening of the Psychological Institute named after his wife L. G. Schukina.
He also taught at the Moscow Higher Women's Courses, the Pedagogical Institute of P. G. Shelaputin and the Moscow Commercial Institute.
In 1919 he was dean of the Faculty of History and Philology, and then a professor of the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the
Georgy Ivanovich Chelpanov (; 28 April O.S. 16 April">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 16 April1862 – 13 February 1936) was a Russian Empire">Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
Imperial and Soviet psychologist, philosopher and logician.
Biography
Chelpanov was born in Mariupol in to an upper-class family of Greek origin. Chelpanov received his primary education in Mariupol at the local parish school, and then studied at the Gymnasium Alexandrinum (Mariupol), graduating in 1883 with a gold medal. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of History and Philology of the Novorossiysk University in Odessa and graduated in 1887 with a Ph.D. From January 1891 he began teaching at the Department of Philosophy atMoscow University
Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...
as a Privatdozent
''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...
. In February 1892 he moved to the Kiev University of St. Vladimir. In November 1896 he defended his dissertation “The problem of perception of space in connection with the doctrine of a priori and innateness”, which was inspired by the works of Nikolai Grot and Lev Lopatin and was awarded the degree of Master of Philosophy by the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. In May 1897 he was appointed acting extraordinary professor of the university in the department of philosophy, which he headed until 1906; in July 1904 he was approved as an ordinary professor. Since 1897, Chelpanov also led the Psychological Seminary at Kiev University.
He wrote articles on psychology in the journals ''Russkaya mysl
''Russian Mind'' (; French – ''La Pensée Russe'') is a pan-European sociopolitical and cultural magazine, published on a monthly basis both in Russian and in English. The modern edition follows the traditions of the magazine laid down in 1880 ...
'', "Problems of Philosophy and Psychology", "The World of God" and in "Kiev University News. Chelpanov published reviews of the latest literature on psychology, epistemology, and Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, et ...
's transcendental aesthetics.
From 1907 he was an ordinary professor at the Department of Philosophy at Moscow University. Already in 1912, Chelpanov began to conduct psychological seminars in the building of the newly built institute, and in March 1914, the grand opening of the Psychological Institute named after his wife L. G. Schukina.
He also taught at the Moscow Higher Women's Courses, the Pedagogical Institute of P. G. Shelaputin and the Moscow Commercial Institute.
In 1919 he was dean of the Faculty of History and Philology, and then a professor of the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Moscow State University
Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...
from 1921 to 1923.
From the beginning of the mid 1920s and the introduction of Marxist
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
psychology by Konstantin Kornilov
Konstantin Nikolayevich Kornilov (; 8 March O.S. 24 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 24 February1879 – 10 July 1957) was a Soviet psychologist. Kornilov is known for being the in ...
and Pavel Blonsky
Pavel Petrovich Blonsky (Russian: Павел Петрович Блонский; May 26 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. May 14/abbr>, 1884 – February 15, 1941) was a Russian Soviet Union">S ...
, Chelpanov's methods were dismissed as idealist. This alongside his negative attitude to the requirement to rebuild psychology on the basis of Marxism, led to his resignation of the position of director of the Psychological Institute. He continued to work as teacher in the Academy of Artistic Sciences with the help of Gustav Shpet, until the Academy was closed.
Chelpanov died on February 13, 1936, and was buried at the Vagankovo Cemetery
Vagankovo Cemetery () is located in the Presnensky District of Moscow, Russia. It was established in 1771, in an effort to curb 1770–1772 Russian plague, an outbreak of bubonic plague in Central Russia. The cemetery was one of those created ou ...
.
Views
In the philosophical works of Chelpanov, the ideas ofBerkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
*George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer to ...
, Hume and Spinoza
Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 163221 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, who was born in the Dutch Republic. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenmen ...
are noticeable. In his psychological research, the theories of Nikolai Grot, Lev Lopatin, Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was t ...
and Carl Stumpf
Carl Stumpf (; 21 April 1848 – 25 December 1936) was a German philosopher, psychologist and musicologist. He is noted for founding the Berlin School of experimental psychology.
He studied with Franz Brentano at the University of Würzburg be ...
had a significant influence on him. Wundt's principle of "empirical parallelism" formed the basis of Chelpanov's criticism of monism
Monism attributes oneness or singleness () to a concept, such as to existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
* Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonis ...
(the theory according to which different types of being or substance are ultimately reduced to a single principle) in psychology and philosophy.
Mental and physical, according to Chelpanov, in principle cannot be identified and do not determine each other. The thesis about the independence (parallelism) of physical and mental processes meant for him the recognition of a special subject of research: "the mental is explained only from the mental." The affirmed “dualism” had its limits: the independence of mental and physical phenomena does not exclude their ontological unity, since they can be an expression of a single whole, a single substance (“neo-Spinozism”). Chelpanov's epistemological views ("transcendental realism") generally corresponded to the principles of the neo-Kantian
In late modern philosophy, neo-Kantianism () was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the thing-in-itself and his moral philosophy ...
theory of knowledge. He stood on the principles of apriorism in general philosophical constructions and in substantiating the foundations of psychological science. At the center of his epistemology is the problem of the “thing in itself” (“something”).
Chelpanov singled out different types and levels of psychological knowledge: experimental psychology, which studies the simplest psychophysiological
Psychophysiology (from Greek , ''psȳkhē'', "breath, life, soul"; , ''physis'', "nature, origin"; and , ''-logia'') is the branch of psychology that is concerned with the physiological bases of psychological processes. While psychophysiology w ...
functions (in the spirit of Wundt's "physiological psychology" method); empirical psychology, the subject of which is mental phenomena; theoretical psychology, which studies the general laws of the spirit. Conducted experiments on the perception of space and time, developed methods of laboratory research (Introduction to experimental psychology, 1915).
Chelpanov understood logical laws as the result of observation of thought processes, which a person receives by revealing the mechanism of his own thinking (at the same time abstracting from the content of thoughts). Laws are formal and universal; they are ideal norms of thought applicable to our concepts of things (but not to them themselves). The fundamental law is the law of contradiction.
Chelpanov recognizes the possibility of law and patterns in history (unlike most neo-Kantians), but understands them as a manifestation of the laws of human will, as an expression of general psychological laws.
Chelpanov was close to the idea of the union of psychology and philosophy (the idea of “philosophical” psychology). However during the Soviet era, when this union turned into a dictate of Marxist ideology, he emphasized the predominantly empirical and experimental nature of psychology as a science, and considered Marxism only applicable in the field of social psychology.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chelpanov, Georgy 1862 births 1936 deaths Psychologists from the Russian Empire 20th-century Russian psychologists Logicians from the Russian Empire Philosophers from the Russian Empire Soviet psychologists Academic staff of Moscow State University Physiologists from the Russian Empire