Ivan Ivanovich Lapshin, the Russian neo-Kantian philosopher, was born in Moscow and studied at the University of St. Petersburg under the leading Russian neo-Kantian, Aleksandr Vvedenskii. Lapshin pursued his studies abroad for some years after 1893, concentrating particularly on Kantianism in English philosophy. With the publication in 1906 of his dissertation and chief philosophical work, Zakony myshleniia i formy poznaniia (The laws of thought and the forms of cognition), he received his doctorate from the University of St. Petersburg and in 1913 was made professor of philosophy at that institution. Along with many other noted Russian scholars Lapshin was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1922; he settled in Prague, where he lived until his death. His many writings cover a broad range of topics in philosophy, psychology, literature, music, and art, and include Russian translations of works by William James.

In his chief work Lapshin...