Zelenohorsky, Fedir

Zelenohorsky, Fedir [Зеленогорський, Федір; Zelenohors'kyj], b 1839 in Gorbatov county, Nizhnii Novgorod gubernia, Russian Empire, d 14 June 1908 in Kharkiv. Philosopher. In 1868 he graduated from Kazan University, where he had studied under M. Troitsky and inherited from him a deep respect for British empiricism. After obtaining a PH D in 1878, he was appointed professor of philosophy at Kharkiv University. He wrote a master’s thesis on Aristotle’s doctrine of the soul in comparison with the doctrines of Socrates and Plato (1871). In his major work, on the mathematical, metaphysical, inductive, and critical methods of research and proof (1877), he admitted the importance of the inductive method and adopted many empiricist doctrines, such as D. Hume’s doctrine of causality, but argued against Troitsky that the other three methods have a legitimate place in philosophy and science. In the 1890s he turned his attention to the history of philosophy in Ukraine and published articles on the influence of Hryhorii Skovoroda, Johann Baptist Schad, and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling at Kharkiv University.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]