A.N. Leont'ev

1904-1979

“In reality the philosophic discovery of Marx consists not in identifying practice with cognition but in recognizing that cognition does not exist outside the life process that in its very nature is a material, practical process. The reflection of reality arises and develops in the process of the development of real ties of cognitive people with the human world surrounding them; it is defined by these ties and, in its turn, has an effect on their development. Human consciousness thus ceases to be an "intrinsic quality of the human spirit" with no history or intractability to causal analysis. We begin to understand it as the highest form of reflection of reality that sociohistorical development creates: a system of objectively existing agents gives birth to it and causal historical analysis makes it accessible to us.”; Marxism and Psychological Science

Biography

Works:

Activity, Consciousness, and Personality, 1978

Activity and Consciousness, 1977