ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that in the period between 1920 and 1930 Alexandr Romanovich Luria formulated a systematic approach to human psychological processes in which the human capacity to create and use culture was the central tenet of his psychological thought to the end of his life. It suggests that all of his later research and theory can not be properly understood if his commitment to the idea of cultural psychology is ignored. W. Wundt believed that the two enterprises supplement each other; only through a synthesis of their respective insights could a full psychology be achieved. Psychology, he believed, should be a special science of the mind which would serve as the foundation science for all of the human sciences. Alexei Leontiev, who along with Lev Vygotsky and Luria had set up a new department of psychology in Kharkov, in the Ukraine, remained there to develop his own line of work on learning and development.
