In the philosophical works of Chelpanov, the ideas of
Berkeley,
Hume and
Spinoza are noticeable. In his psychological research, the theories of Nikolai Grot, Lev Lopatin,
Wilhelm Wundt and
Carl Stumpf had a significant influence on him. Wundt's principle of "empirical parallelism" formed the basis of Chelpanov's criticism of
monism (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 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 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==