Alexander Luria

1902-1977

“There is no hope of finding the sources of free action in the lofty realms of the mind or in the depths of the brain. The idealist approach of the phenomenologists is as hopeless as the positive approach of the naturalists. To discover the sources of free action it is necessary to go outside the limits of the organism, not into the intimate sphere of the mind, but into the objective forms of social life; it is necessary to seek the sources of human consciousness and freedom in the social history of humanity. To find the soul it is necessary to lose it". A.R Luria

Biography:

By Michael Cole: A brief overview of Luria's life and work

Photo Archive

Works:

The Development of Writing in the Child, 1929 (5Mb pdf).

Ape, Primitive Man, and Child: Essays in the History of Behaviour, c. 1930
Chapter 3: The Child and his Behavior.

Cognitive Development: Its Social and Cultural Foundations, 1976
Chapter 1: The Problem.

The Making of Mind, A Personal Account of Soviet Psychology, publ. 1979.
1. Apprenticeship
2. Moscow
3. Vygotsky
4. Cultural Differences in Thinking

Archive of the Works of Alexander Luria, at the University of California, San Diego