Abstract

In this article I analyse the correlation between the direct and the mediated in activity, consciousness and personality. Cultural-historical psychology, attitude theory and activity theory were solving the tasks of overcoming the ‘postulate of directness’, which led to the ‘postulate of mediation’. None of these postulates shows in its entirety the path of human psychological development and the work of human consciousness. The direct and the mediated are examined in this article as equally necessary conditions for the development of the human psyche. A lot of attention is paid to the nature of the initial, primary spontaneity of a child as an indispensable condition for mastering culture. The direct is the necessary condition for the development of culture, and the mediated is the mechanism of this development.