Ivan Ivanovich Lapshin (11 October 1870 – 17 November 1952) was a Russian philosopher, publicist, translator and teacher.
Biography
Lapshin was born on 11 October in Moscow. He graduated with his Masters from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, where he worked mainly under the guidance of Professor Alexander Ivanovich Vvedensky(rus).
In the autumn of 1892, he presented his first major work, The Controversy between Gassendi and Descartes on the Meditation (300 pages), for consideration at the faculty. In 1893, at the end of the course, he was left at the university at the department of philosophy «to prepare for a professorship.»
He taught logic at the Alexander Lyceum, psychology at women’s gymnasiums; the history of pedagogical theories at higher women’s and military pedagogical courses. In 1906, he was awarded a Doctorate in Philosophy with his dissertation, «The Laws of Thought and Forms of Cognition.»
At St. Petersburg University, he taught courses on the history of pedagogical theories, on the critical theory of knowledge, on the history of skepticism, and on the history of philosophy in the 19th century. He also supervised the practical classes of students on the study of Kant (analysis of the works » Prolegomena » and «Critique of Pure Reason» ).
He taught philosophical subjects at the Pedagogical Institute and the history of philosophy in the courses of Professor Peter Lesgaft.
In 1922 he was expelled from Soviet Russia on a «philosophical ship.» Beginning in 1923 in Czechoslovakia, he began to be a professor at the Russian Faculty of Law, later at the Russian National University in Prague. While in Prague, he participated in the group known as the «Zbraslav Fridays literary and musical association.» He died on 17 November 1952 in Prague, at the age of 82.
Works
Translated from English James’s «Text-Book of Psychology», published in the Faculty’s «Notes», with the appendix of the translator’s article «The Philosophical Significance of James’s Psychological Views».
Later published the following articles:
«On the Possibility of Eternal Peace in Philosophy» («Journal of the Ministry of Public Education», August 1898);
«The Fate of Critical Philosophy in England before 1830» («Journal of the Ministry of Public Education», 1901);
«On the Psychological Study of Metaphysical Illusions» («Life», January 1900).
He contributed more than 30 articles to the Brockhaus and Efron Dictionary.
He published the book “Laws of Thinking and Forms of Cognition” with the appendix of two studies: “On Cowardice in Thinking” (previously published in the journal “Problems of Philosophy and Psychology”, No. 56) and “On Mystical Cognition and Universal Feeling” (published in the “Collection in Honor of V. I. Lamansky”, published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1905).
