Jahrbuch der Luria-Gesellschaft 2021

The Luria Society e.V. carries its name in memory of Alexander Romanovich Luria (Luria), 1902 - 1977, who, along with Lev S. Vygotsky and Alexei N. Leontiev, founded cultural-historical psychology and activity theory. The purpose of the Luria Society is to secure and further develop the scientific legacy of these theories. The central task of this concept is to overcome a dualistic, functionalist, and reductionist view of humans and their consciousness. This cannot be achieved without the development of the category of activity, which is understood as an active interaction in social engagement with the world, as an expression of the meaningful and systematic structure of psychological processes in the development of subjectivity. A cultural-historical and activity-theoretical approach to the psyche requires recognizing the interrelationships between the biological, psychological, and social levels of the holistic human being, and does not reduce the individual to psychology and biology or to sociology. The autonomy of psychological functions as human experience and human consciousness are real moments of the motivated and emotionally grounded activity of the personality. They are embedded in the human living conditions and relationships that produce them and are produced by them. With Alexander R. Luria, the founder of neuropsychology: "The social forms of life compel the brain to work in new ways, they give rise to qualitatively new functional systems." The yearbook of the Luria Society is committed to this concept. Its contents are oriented towards the methodological and scientific legacy of the cultural-historical school/activity theory and its relevance to current human science problems and questions.