LIFE, PSYCHE, CONSCIOUSNESS
Alexander Surmava

The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism — that of Feuerbach included — is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object [Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity, practice [Praxis], not subjectively.
K. Marx “Theses On Feuerbach”

Reviewing the state of psychological science of his time, L. S. Vygotsky asserted that the numerous attempts in developing a unified psychological theory usually stumbled on the obviously (but more often veiled from view of the psychologists themselves) unsolved Cartesian psychophysical problem and its fundamental insolvability. This opinion was shared also by Alexei Leont’yev and Petr Gal’perin.
Despite all their attempts to find a fundamental solution of the problem and develop a unified psychological theory, the founders of the cultural activity school have not had enough time to achieve the goal. Not only did the persistent dualism continue to split up the living tissue of their own theoretical thought, but it still hinders any further development of the unified cultural activity psychology.
Even though the theoretical and philosophic aims and purposes of the founders of Russian psychology are fundamentally the same, today we have to deal actually with two theories – “cultural and historical approach” developed by Vygotsky and “activity approach” elaborated by Leont’yev. And the polemics on their probable unity or opposition has still persisted to the present. We can confidently say in advance that the fundamentals of these theoretical “approaches” are identical and a single cultural activity psychological school does exist so that we have the possibility of developing a really unified cultural activity psychological theory based on its fundamental concepts.
Our conviction is based on the fact that today we have a tool that was not available for Vygotsky, and that was not applied by Leont’yev either. The case in point is an analysis of the fundamental categorical concepts of theoretical psychology found in the works of E.V.Ilyenkov. On the basis of these works, we will address ourselves first of all to an analysis of the psychophysical problem as such.
The psychophysical problem is a specific historical form of the ever-lasting philosophical problem, i.e. the problem of identity of thought (thinking) and being. In the XVII century, in the philosophy of  Rene Descartes, the problem took the form which still presents a considerable challenge for the modern theoretical psychologists.
As a founder of a new European philosophy, Descartes had to tackle, in one way or another, the equation that could be put in the following medieval form:
m v1 + m2v2 = m1v3 + m2v4 + ,
where m and v are a mass and velocity respectively, that is the quantities which are rather “extensive”, in Descartes terms, and   - a certain other-world increment.
Typically for the medieval theoretical culture, the alchemists considered precisely as a major parameter which could be subjected to some magic in order to achieve the desired result.
In a similar way, this medieval (al)chemical equation could be presented as follows:
Pb +  = Au,
where Pb is lead, Au is gold and  is still the same magic variable.
In the mean time, the New Era called for chemical, not alchemical, methods and know-how, precise mechanics, not magic. Deeply rooted in history and culture, the traditional medieval pattern of thinking was not able to offer a satisfactory solution of these problems. And Descartes cut the Gordian knot of the old thought by the sword of his critical mind and accomplished one of the greatest theoretical revolutions in human history by elimination of the notorious  from the equations describing physical and chemical interactions.
Descartes makes a distinction between two strictly independent principles, two types of causality: thinking substance and extensive substance. All finite things are just modi of the said substances. They are either inanimate extensive bodies or various definitions of thought (thinking). Any natural interaction between these two substances is impossible, their absolute independence of one another follows from their definition as theoretically opposite substances sharing absolutely nothing in common.
To put it differently, if we consider mechanical interaction of natural bodies, then only the terms which could be fully reduced to pure spatial expanses may enter into the equation describing this interaction. And vice versa, any , that is any incorporeal, non-spatial phenomena are supposed to be a constant strictly equal to zero. Not an infinitesimally small quantity, but just nil. Otherwise all the equations of modern physics become meaningless. If any momentum could be imparted to a cue-ball not only by the other ball, cue or hand but directly by the thought as such, if the so-called “telekinesis” is possible, then the equations of Newton and Einstein are not worth of paper they are written on.
A similar ban on interaction between the opposite substances is valid for the thinking substance as well. A logical “equation” cannot have any “extensive terms”, or, again, they have to be nil. In other words, if the thought A implies the thought B, if B follows from A, then no extensive (spatial) things can have a direct influence on this logical relationship. To be sure, a long (extensive) sword can put an end to philosophizing Archimedes but it has no power to change anything in the Archimedean law.
Nevertheless, Descartes himself could not stand up consistently to this dualistic principle and was forced to admit, against himself, the obvious fact of interaction between these two substances in the body of a living and thinking human being. The volition, i.e. a modus of thinking, is able to determine a motorial behavior of a human body just as well as a mere physical suffering can induce a human soul to thinking and perception of the external things.
In other words, in case of a human being, or more precisely, of his corpus pineale in the cerebrum, the equation presented above retains its pre-Cartesian form. The quantity of movement of the pineal gland is determined not only by the impulse imparted to the gland by the entirely material “animal spirits” but by the thought and will as well, by non-spatial psyche or psychics. The factor  driven out from Cartesian physics and physiology now celebrates a victory in Cartesian anthropology and psychology.
Descartes realized that at this point his philosophy was in conflict with logic but he could not overcome this controversy. The only alternative for his naïve hypothesis of the pineal gland as a receptacle of psyche was his thought of fundamental insolubility of the problem. He shared his doubts with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia. (Oeuvres de Descartes. Vol. 4.) (Another alternative - proposed by occasionalism in the person of Geulincx, Malebranche and others – described relationships between spirit and body in terms of a miracle and thus fell outside the scope of science including philosophy).
But what then prevented Descartes from total elimination of a non-spatial psyche from his anthropology in just the same way as he successfully removed a plant and animal soul from botany and zoology? It was just the circumstance (still valid up to now) that a human being as a thinking creature is free and universal while his organic body is limited and finite.
According to Descartes’ first criterion, a human being is fundamentally different from a finite reflex machine because he is able to act with any object on its form even if he met this object for the first time in his life and he had neither innate nor acquired means for operation on the shape of just this object. In just the same way (and this is Descartes’ second criterion) a human being cannot be reduced to a machine by virtue of the fact that he is able to give sensible answers to the questions not only unknown to him before being questioned, but not existing at all until then.
The corporeal mechanisms, providing for an infinite multitude of means of operation as well as infinitely many answers to the questions which are not put yet, are not supposed to find room in a finite body of a human being and thus, in Descartes opinion, the solution for such great abilities is to be found not in body, but in soul, in pure subjectivity, not in a spatial substance but in a substance with ability to think.
But then again rational thought reaches a deadlock where interaction of these substances is impossible. “We understand a substance only as a thing which can exist per se, not having need of any other thing for its being” Descartes wrote. But it means that all causal chains are closed within a substance. A modus of the other substance can not causally interact with any modus of the first substance. So then the great potentialities of thinking ability has no value for a human being in the sense that they can not really intervene in a causal chain of a different substantial nature, i.e. a chain of corporeal, sensual and spatial causality. Except that we conceive, despite rational intentions of Cartesian philosophy, such psychophysical interaction between these substances as an irrational miracle.
We have only one consistently rational way out of this Cartesian trap which was offered by Spinoza. Essentially he proceeds from the assumption that only one substance does exists, not two. His substance is identical to Nature as a whole so that all conceivable causal chains are closed within it. Substantia est causa sui (A substance is a cause of itself) - here is Spinoza’s statement. But it follows that thinking and psychics which Spinoza, in contrast with Descartes, considered inherent in animals too, is not something transcendental and other-worldly for a sensual and spatial body of an animal or a human being who can feel and think. This is an inalienable attribute of the latter as well as a spatial attribute (“extensiveness”) that is not an independent substance but along with thinking presents an attribute of one single substance (Nature).
Consequently, in Spinoza’s opinion, it is just a mistake to raise a question regarding interaction between a body and a soul. “Neither a body can attribute a soul to thinking, nor a soul can attribute a body to a motion or rest, to anything (if only something like this does exist). (Spinoza, 1957, p. 458) In principle, causal relationship cannot exist between them since “a soul and a body are one and the same thing” (ibid.).
Obviously this raises the question as to nature of thinking. If Spinozian thinking is inherent in the whole of nature, then does not it mean that, unlike Descartes, who eliminated thinking from physical nature, Spinoza endowed not only living creatures but dead stones as well with the ability to think? And if so, what is thinking as such?
So then Spinoza considers thinking as an inherent characteristics of Nature as a whole, as an attribute of the substance. Interpreted in this way, thinking is not mimicked as a given empirical human thinking or human psychics, but on the contrary, the latter can only be understood as a specific modus of this (universal) thinking. And at last, if a space (extent) is a static feature of Nature or Substance, then thinking is its dynamic, processual characteristic. As a thinking essence, Nature manifests itself not in abstract rest, but in action, and accordingly to this, the features of this action are the features of thinking as such.
By way of illustration from Descartes, the ability of a thinking creature to build up his mode of action not in accordance with a predetermined corporeal program but according to the form of an object given here and now could only reveal and exteriorize some intrinsic potentiality which has nothing in common with this spatial action but could perform this exteriorization only in some mystical manner incomprehensible for Descartes himself. But to Spinoza, thinking is nothing but a specific manner of action of a thinking body.
In accordance with this definition, a human being, as any other creature, can think in proportion to his ability to act in conformity with the shape and disposition of all other bodies. A major secret of Spinozian interpretation of thinking lies in the ability to reflect the forms of the objective world by the form of active operation of a subject, but not in the subjective ability to experience the immediate reality.
It is evident that the Spinozian category of thinking is more distant from the traditional psychological conception of “thinking” than that of Descartes. No less obvious is the fact that this notion of thinking understood in such a manner still waits for its substantial analysis and further psychological research.
One of the first researchers who made a major step toward this was Vygotsky. In his paper “Psyche, consciousness, the unconscious” (1930) he proposes to make a distinction between the contemporary psychological schools depending on what the Cartesian substances are where they find initial and final links of psychological causality. The subject matter of the research work of the psychologists oriented to the ideas of Ivan Pavlov and of the American behaviorists alike is the Cartesian extensive (spatial) substance. They build up some strictly casual scientific knowledge. But there is no room for the psyche, subjectivity in this knowledge. And, on the contrary, the introspective as well as “comprehending” psychologists are keen to study precisely human subjectivity, psychics, but their efforts result in some “comprehending” knowledge, not a causal science.
It is obvious that psychology which, beginning with W. Wundt, strived to become a scientific discipline, could exist only in between these two radical approaches seeking to put forward some third, synthetic method. It is equally evident that this attempt was a classic example of “an attempt with unfit means” since the method proposed by Descartes for solving the anthropological problem splits a living unity into two abstractly opposite substances. The method could not fail to lead to the hypothesis of pineal gland which could be deflected through arbitrary angles by “free will”.
Vygotsky fully realizes that the way out of the impasse of the psychophysical problem lies in the Spinozian idea of one single substance, that real and sole causa sui (a cause of itself). He was not confused at all by the fact that this approach is a quintessence of materialism. He was convinced that recognition of a substantial nature of psychics and ascribing to it some special essential qualities subject to some specific unnatural or supernatural laws different from sensual and natural laws is just an idealistic deadlock.
In accordance with the Spinozian logic, Vygotsky sought to restore unity of the object of psychological research and stated that no causal relation exists or can exist between neurophysiologic processes occurring in the brain of a subject and the world of his subjectivity since the first and the second are just two sides of the same subject, i.e. a thinking brain. But such “a brain-centered” solution of the psychophysical problem (coming back to L. Feuerbach) cannot fully satisfy Vygotsky since it leaves the problem of the biological meaning of psychics principally unsolved.
Nature creates nothing unnecessary – this thought seems equally obvious to Vladimir Bekhterev with his objectivistic approach and to the subjectivist Buhler. If psychics is interpreted as a phenomenal world experienced by a subject and presents just an inner side of his neurophysiology then we cannot understand at all what it is for and what is its utilitarian, “objective” meaning for a human being or an animal? The Cartesian psychology in its own way gives a logical answer to this question within its conception of psychophysical interaction. In its context, psychics emerging at a certain stage of the evolution makes it possible, in the mental plane (that of images), to solve some practical problems unsolvable on the level of corporeal automatic reactions. The denial of a very possibility of psychophysical interaction makes this interpretation of psychics quite senseless. If a thought is not able even slightly to move an extensive (spatial) body, not an atom inside this body, then what is it for?
It makes no sense to inquire about biological meaning of the subjective perceptions as such and abstract phenomenal “psychics”. Only a philosophizing human being who is satisfied and feels safe from any natural troubles can contemplate the idea of primacy, substantiality and value of these subjective perceptions as such. In natural environment, the subjective perceptions of an animal are first of all of primary practical value in the context of its external specific activity, its “adaptive behavior”. The same is true of a practically active but not only abstractly thinking human being and the more so of humanity as a whole. In nature, there can be no abstract incorporeal “brain” experiencing its autistic reveries but there exist living creatures with or even without brain and they are practically and perceptively active. Some incorporeal but actively functioning brain, busy with calculations is just a product of the imagination of a fantasy-monger, something aesthetically impossible just as well as “a neuron of consciousness”, “a synapse of conscience” or “a microtubule of mind” is impossible for any cultured imagination. But then it is equally impossible to mentally ascribe another subjective attribute of thought to this extensive (spatial) fantastic “creature” lest it be a phantasm identical to its extensive alter ego.
That is what Vygotsky asserted appealing to find a key for solution of the “cursed“ psychological problems “within a single process of behavior” which ensures biological adaptation to the reality.
In other words, using the same logic Vygotsky proposed to regard as a subject of Spinozian identity not an abstract brain but the whole organism of an animal, or, to put it in Ilyenkov’s words, a thinking body, and a body not at rest but actively adapting to the environment “in terms of Alexei Severtsov” (Vygotsky, 1982, p.141) i.e. a body acting on the shape (in accordance with the form) of an object. An extensive (spatial) attribute of the given subject would correspond to the proper sensual “adaptive” activity of the organism while a thinking attribute would conform to “psychology”. Vygotsky suggested the use of the last term in the given context because the term “psychics” is already used in the previous false opposition: physiology – psychics.
We emphasize that Vygotsky makes a real revolutionary discovery here. No researcher before and after him was able to interpret Spinoza in this way and so uniquely interpret the central theoretical problem of psychology known up to this time as a “psychophysiological” problem. Vygotsky himself did not realize the importance of his discovery. He stated his position that was fundamentally new for psychological science, but he made no use of it. The only theoretician who came to the similar conclusions more than forty years later was Evald Ilyenkov with his “Dialectical Logic” (1974) where he set forth his interpretation of Spinoza.
In the mean time, the same problem greatly interested Leont’yev. As well as Vygotsky, he had to proceed from the generally accepted conception of psychics as a function of brain. He flatly refused to agree with the notion that psychic reflection, i.e. an image, occurs in the brain as a direct result of “one or the other action on the recipient systems of a human being”. Between an object of reflection and its psychic image, there must be included a “third” link, i.e. the sensual activity, which plastically imitates the form of its object. It is obvious that using this idea of plastic imitation Leont’yev after Il’yenkov comes right up to the Spinozian solution of the same psychophysical problem.
But Leont’yev as well as the others was not determined enough to formulate clearly his idea (logically following from his works) that psychics could not be generated by activity because it is an activity in itself. The “exterior”, sensual and spatial activity is not and cannot be a premise (pre-condition) for the “interior” activity that is said to belong totally to psychology, “as it was the case according to the Cartesian division” or just as a face of a human being cannot be preconditioned by its profile. Exterior activity is not a connecting “third link” that must fill the gap between the reflected outer object and reflecting brain. Nor is it a means for mediation of the exterior activity and psychic or interior activity, “psyche-process” and “psyche-image”. Psychics is an attribute of the exterior, sensual objective activity and thus we have nothing at all “on the other side” of the “exterior activity”. And vise versa, by stating the reverse, that along with the “exterior” activity there exists the “interior” activity, Leont’yev happily comes back to the impasse of the Cartesian dualism.
The error of Leont’yev is rooted in the very basis of his theoretical conception. After Vygotsky, he strives to build up his theory in accordance with the ascent from the abstract to the concrete proceeding from the so-called “germ cell” which, in his conception, plays the role of life notion. At the same time, his comprehension of life per se is borrowed quite uncritically from positivistic biology of his time.
The hypothesis on the origin of psyche presented by Alexei Leont’yev and Alexander Zaporozhets is preceded by the general philosophic reasoning: “Any material process, - Zaporozhets writes (1986, p.26) – both an organic and an inorganic one lies in interaction of the material bodies. However, the nature of their interaction undergoes a change as the matter develops. In inorganic nature, interaction leads, as a rule, to destruction and annihilation of the interacting dead bodies while in the organic nature it becomes a condition sine qua non for existence of a living body”.
“Life is a process of specific interaction of specifically organized bodies”, - Leont’yev concluded (1981, p.37). He applies the same logic (that of interaction) to the essence of psyche as well. “We consider a psyche as an attribute of matter. But any attribute reveals itself as a specific form of motion of matter, as a peculiar interaction. Investigation of any attribute is at the same time investigation of the relevant interaction (ibid, p.35).
The above-cited excerpts formulate comprehension of the category of the essence according to which its scientific definitions are not to be searched for inside the object being studied but in the system of its relationships and interactions inside some broader whole. And we have no objections here. We are tempted to argue when the essence of life is interpreted as irritability understood as a kind of interaction of a living body with the environment. Here is how this thought is expressed by Zaporozhets (1986, p. 27): “The ability of living creatures to react upon the action of the environment and to come to an active state under its influence is referred as irritability. Irritability is characteristic for any organism and presents a fundamental quality of any living matter”.
It is easy to verify that the above-cited definition is exactly the same as accepted in the natural science, say, by Claude Bernard (1878, p. 208) who stated that: “An irritability is a quality of a living element to act according to its nature as a result of an extraneous stimulus”.
Both the formulation of Alexander Zaporozhets and that of Claude Bernard are dealing with interaction between a living organism and some abstract “external medium”, “outer agents” or “extraneous” stimuli.  Strictly speaking, we are dealing here not even with interaction but a one-sided influence on a living organism from some objects defined as the things external to the organism when this very organism does not operate as an active subject of the interaction but acts as a passive object of external stimuli.
At the same time, Leont’yev constantly underlines that in the context of living relation the organism manifests itself just as an active subject. He implies not interaction of a subject with some abstract external stimulus or environment but a specific objective (“predmetnoe” or predmet directed) relationship. This suggests a set of fundamental conclusions (implications).
Firstly, a living organism, in order to avoid being passive only in relation to its object but to be “active, striving or passionate” (Leont’yev) needs no external compulsion, cause or incitement (stimulus) in order to direct its activity to the object but it develops its activity spontaneously. In other words, it acts as it must in relation to its object of passion.
Secondly, the very object (=predmet) of a living organism is not an accidental external thing but it is a thing determined by the organism itself as an object of its “passionate striving”.
Thirdly and lastly, active, predmet directed operation of a living organism is not a certain stirring determined just from within but a known action according to the form of an object as understood by Spinoza and Il’yenkov.
But such a comprehension of a subject-matter relation ( as is the understanding of relationships between an active organism and an object in the context of “living motion” in the works of Nikolai Bernstein) is not well suited for the category of interaction but obviously enough ascents to the “stronger” dialectical category of positioning.
Active or predmet directed relation can not be possibly comprehended as interaction of two objects external to each other. For example, the sun taken abstractly, out of touch with the process of life, can as equally slightly be “predmet” for a plant as well as for astronomy. It receives a specific predmet quality exclusively due to spontaneous activity of a green plant “selecting” the sun as its predmet and “scrupulously” imitating its celestial movement with that of the plant leaves.
That is to say that living, active or predmet relation as such is possible only between a living, spontaneously acting subject and a predmet positioned by its vital activity.
Something else again is a stimulating-reactive relation, or a relation of irritability. Firstly, it is not spontaneous on the side of a subject being stimulated. Secondly, it is not productive since the organism does not determine its predmet but has to satisfy itself with accidental and therefore indifferent external influence. Thirdly, the response of the organism (if only it is not just a mechanistic action of an external cause) can be conditioned only by abstract inner nature of the organism itself but in no way by the shape of the external thing indifferent to the organism incidentally coming into contact with its living subjectivity. To put it differently, we can find not the slightest trace of predmet directedness within a stimulating-reactive relation.
Though Leont’yev already sensed really dialectical comprehension of the nature of vitally active or predmet directed relation but he could not hold on to it and came back from dialectics of positioning to reasoning with regard to interaction of the organism with the external environment. “A major peculiarity of the process of interaction of living organisms with their environment lies in the fact that any response (reaction) of the organism to an external action presents an active process, i.e. it happens at the expense of energy of the organism itself”. (Leont’yev, 1981, pp. 50-51).
Here again, Leont’yev substitutes a predmet for environment and then attempts to define the peculiarity of interaction of abstractly living organisms with it, i.e. organisms living prior to the act of positining of the predmet, prior to ”the extraordinary act” (this term usually ascribed to Leont’yev in fact belongs to Pavlov) of meeting with a ready-made pre-existing predmetness.
But this undifferentiated representation of the environment mixes up what is the predmet of a living organism in relation to which this organism manifests its activity and what is not and thus in relation to which the living organism is only passive, i.e. it does not reveal itself as a living one. So in its interaction with the environment, the living organism would manifest itself alternately as a living and active subject and as a lifeless and passive object. Consequently, any response (reaction) of the organism to an external influence of the environment would not necessarily be an active process regardless of our comprehension of the category of activity.
Secondly, even overlooking his purely stylistic incongruity, Leont’yev defines an active relation of the living organism to its predmet, i.e. an action in fact, as a passive relation and just as a response to an external influence, as a re-action. Although he states thereafter that this reaction of the living organism is actually an active process, i.e. an action, not a reaction.
Nevertheless, the organism capable of revealing its living essence only as a response to an external and thus exclusively accidental action by the object which by pure chance happened to be “here and now” can remain a living organism only as a result of the same accidental circumstances.
Thirdly and lastly, in the above-cited argument, Leont’yev defines activity as an ability to react to an external action which is inherent only in a living organism in the way when its reaction occurs not at the expense of the energy of the external stimulus, but of the organism itself. But even on the level of inorganic chemistry we encounter the multitude of examples of precisely such an “active” (in terms of Leont’yev) mode of reaction. For example, if we set fire to detonating gas the reaction would be an explosion the energy of which would be very remotely related to the energy of a burning match but would belong totally to the stimulated system of two gases.
This actually physicalistic comprehension of the nature of activity is not able to reflect the actual specifics of living motion and has nothing at all in common with representation of living motion plastically assimilating the shape of its object, the idea that was developed by Leont’yev himself.
But it should be noted that Leont’yev attributes the latter exclusively to the psychically mediated motion, or perceptibility, in obvious conflict with the fact cited by himself that the leaves of a plant follow the movement of the sun.
It is interesting to note that both Leont’yev and Zaporozhets, for all their serious and profound analysis, in this case are quite indifferent to the facts cited by themselves and would not admit this movement of the plants as the ability of active and plastic assimilation of the shape of an object whether it be the movement of the leaves following the sun, root germination according to the gradient of humidity or, lastly, active predmet directed locomotion of the unicellulars and even some multi-cellular organisms, e.g. colonial algae.
In our opinion, their attitude is rooted in the idea that comes back to Ivan Sechenov according to which the ability of a living organism to assimilate the shape of its predmet is a proper psychic ability and, if not, then at least it should be conditioned by the latter. Therefore the ability of plastic assimilation they “save up” in order to define a principle of interaction of bodies within the framework of not just living but psychic relation, not only for definition of the ability of irritability but that of sensibility.
The notion of the essence of life attracts the authors of this hypothesis only inasmuch as life presents the next step leading to psyche in evolution of material world. So after defining the essence of life as irritability they turn to deduction and infer sensibility or psyche from it.
It is precisely this presentation of the essence of life as an ability of being stimulated is responsible for the fact that Leont’yev could not overcome the stimulus-reaction paradigm of the old psychology. With good reason, he proclaimed the principle of activity as a key to build up a new activity based psychology but he actually failed to implement it. It was caused by the fact that the very notion of activity and life had not been developed adequately yet. A great step forward was made by Nikolai Bernstein who was working on physiology of activity (physiology of predmet directed actions) and proclaimed the idea of development of biology of activity. But any wide demand for theoretical development of his ideas still remains a great scientific potential.
At the same time, using the idea of activity from which Leont’yev started to build up his operational psychological theory, we have made an attempt to formulate a theoretical definition of life.
Activity, in contrast to the principle of passiveness (contemplation), characterizes the following three qualities or attributes:
1.	Not reactivity, but spontaneity;
2.	Not an abstractly external object, but a predmet positioned by the vital activity of the subject itself, i.e. productivity:
3.	Not an immanent “stirring” but an action according to the form (on the shape) of a predmet.
In our opinion, a principle of activity (predmet directedness) taken as a whole is actually a general principle of life, i.e. life as such both mediate by psychic activity and not mediated by it. 
From this theoretical definition of life, like Leont’yev himself, we turn to a theoretical definition of psyche as well. But we start with the immediate empirical definition of psyche, i.e. with its subjective ability to be experienced and presented to an individual. It was no accident that empirical psychology started with the attempts to put to the ”chemical” analysis the phenomena of consciousness of the subject given to him spontaneously. Imperceptible perception or insensible affect is just a contradictio in adjecto. Meanwhile the available subjective presentation itself gives rise to major obstacles on the way of the traditional scientific experimental investigation of psyche and makes its study practically impossible from an evolutionary aspect (study of different forms of zoo-psychics). Rooted in this is the cause for the crisis of introspective psychology and false expectations to overcome it by denying subjectivity as such.
From theoretical and evolutionary considerations it immediately follows that psyche could hardly begin, let alone develop, in the course of natural historical process if its only reason were the ability of an animal to perceive its perceptions and experience its affects irrespective of their predmet meaning. Perceptions, and psychics in general, have for an animal a highly utilitarian sense just because they are not only and not as much abstractly subjective experiences (feelings) but also have some predmet content, an image of his objective habitat, his objective operational conditions, his Umwelt which is presented to the animal in the form of these subjective and affective feelings.
It is obvious that for active movement in his predmet space in search for food, shelter and a sexual partner, an animal needs objective information on the specific shape of this space and his place in it. But from this one fact it does not follow at all that this information should necessarily be presented to a living organism in the form of a subjective perception or feeling. But in this case we would have no logical ground whatever to deny the presence of psyche in plants and zoospores and even in cybernetic devices which can successfully solve such spatial and motive problems.
It is no less obvious as well that both perceptions and affects should be conceived not as abstractly subjective incorporeal phenomena but as the acts totally corporeal. Thought is an action of a thinking body according to the shape of its object, and if we consider a unicellar organism – this atom or a monad of life - as a subject of such an action then its vital objective activity is something simple. The cell moves according to the gradient of its objective field or, in case of highly specialized unicellar organisms, on the shape of some discrete substrate. As this takes place, we have no reason whatsoever to ascribe any subjective plan to it since there is no such a plan in its mobile activity. There is a unicellar atomistic subject and his predmet field positioned by its vital activity and its movement according to the gradient of this field. Besides, there is activity and externally directed movements, and nothing else.
Quite a different situation arises when we examine an organism consisting of at least two cells as a subject of vital activity. In this case we are dealing with the organic system objective activity of which as a whole consists of sub-activities of its organic parts, its organs. Activity of the entire living organism by definition itself is directed to its predmet which is positioned as spontaneous activity. But a living organism lives as long as its constituents live. Consequently, each individual cell or organ should be continually active as well.
That to the shape of which moves the entire organism presents some external thing spontaneously positioned by the organism as its predmet. But does the whole organism move to the shape of the object? When a subject sitting on a chair takes in with his hand and then outlines with his eyes the circles, squares or sinusoids then by no means the whole organism is involved in this associated movement. Is any one active organ involved in this against the motionless backgrounds of any others? Obviously not. The path (trajectory) that is congruent to the shape of a predmet is performing most frequently by some active or, in more exact terms, sub-active organ since a category of activity is relevant only to the organism as a whole. But again this organ, inasmuch as it is predmet directed, is immediately directed not at an external predmet but at the oppositely acting organ of the organism itself. Unilateral activity such as, say, mechanistic reaction of the leg to striking the nerve with a neurologic hammer is neither objective nor active performance even though performed entirely at the expense of the “energy of the organism itself”. A predmet directed action is an action provided with oppositely directed activity of the reciprocal muscular units (generally motor ones since the activity can be provided by other means, say, by ciliary motion). An intelligent subjective and active hand is always ready to jerk back. It does not break the thing but carefully gropes about it with a series of tentative movements when the hand moves “on the shape” of an object sliding over in parallel with its surface and at the same time it positions the thing as if moulding it from non-existence and acting normally (perpendicularly) to the shape of the latter. Such a motion constantly reversing its activity vector can be performed only by a system of oppositely directed sub-activities. Consequently an objective action of such a multi-cellular organism is provided by a system of reflecsive actions directed by the organism to itself. Precisely this mechanism was investigated in detail by Nikolai Bernstein when he considered the necessity of “restriction of the excessive degrees of freedom of the joints in order to perform a predmet directed action”.
A predmet directed action of a multi-cellular organism the operation of which is contently mediated by its reflecsive or directed to itself activity is, in terms of Vygotsky, a “psychological” action. In the attribute of thought (thinking), it is perception of the self and perception of the other, an affect and an intellect that corresponds to it. There cannot be any perception, any psychic reflection, any image of the other extra-corporeal object without perception of the self. A predmet directed activity of not a unicellar organism is impossible without a reflecsive activity directed to itself.
The above-said can be illustrated by the example taken from electro-physics. A charged particle “behaves” like a unicellar organism. It is productive, i.e. it produces an electric field around itself and subsequently moves according to the gradient of this field. And yet the organisms of highly developed multi-cellular animals cannot be possibly likened to the movement of a point charge even though the object of such a multi-cellular creature presents the same elemental environment or a continual predmet field. A predmet directed activity of such a creature, if we proceed with the same analogy for a simple case, would rather resemble a “behavior” of an electric dipole in the external electro-static field. The specific outline of the movement of such a creature would be substantially mediated by its inner reflecsive relationships.
If an elementary point charge would “simply” move along (or against) the gradient of an external electro-static field then a dipole, in addition to this translation, would continually swing lengthwise of the lines of force of this field. As this takes place, its opposite charges would be constantly influenced by the opposing forces striving to break it in two separate charges of the same sign so that a general outline of the dipole movement as a whole would be substantially mediated by gravitation that holds together the opposite charges of the dipole. To understand “behavior” of the dipole and objective activity of a multi-cellular organism abstracting from their “inner” reflecsive relationships is as impossible as to comprehend an intellect of a living creature, its “cognitive” relationship to the world of its objects ignoring its “affective” relation to itself.
Thus we reveal a psychic or an animal type of vital activity where successive externally predmet directed activity of an organism is dialectically negated simultaneous predmet operation of its living sub-units, living organs related to each other with some morphogenetic or reflecsive relationships.
A predmet directed operation of such an organism is not only a movement on the shape of the objective field, not only abstractly “external” action but it also necessarily is a reflecsive relation directed to itself, especial “internal” activity. That is the reason why any external objective type of perception is affectively colored and ever given to an animal not as its purely external objective activity but as its sensible (perceptible) form and internal bodily self-perception.
“Human soul perceives any external body as actually existing only through the concept of the conditions of its own body” (Spinoza, 1957, p. 407). To put it differently, sensation is not a precise mould of an object but it is reflecsive by its very nature.
This essential attributiveness of psychic activity differing from abstractly vital activity was not fixed by Leont’yev who confined himself to showing the presence of such an affective component of any psychic act referring to it as  “perceptible texture of sensation”.
A reflexive relationship, to use a computer language, implements a function of feedback and operational self-tuning of an acting organism. In Spinoza’s terms (as well as of modern psychology), the same function is termed as an affect. “I use the term “affect”, - Spinoza says, - in reference to conditions of body (corporis affections) which increase or diminish the ability of the body itself to act, favor or hinder this activity, as well as to the ideas (notions) of these conditions” (ibid., p 456).
Life of an organism realizing both active and reflecsive relationships in the process of its vital activity presents a fundamentally integral vital process where its structural elements are not isolated and fixed morphological units – cells or multi-cellular organisms – and much less abstract physiological processes. They are active predmet directed processes not indifferent to each other, actively interacting with each other, determining each other so that they become a single dialectical ensemble in the end.
Life of such an organism, as viewed from its relation to its predmet field, presents an extra- or intra-corporeal predmet perception, “an action on the shape of an object”, in terms of Spinoza and Il’yenkov, or an intellect. Life taken in relation of an organism to itself is an interoceptive self-perception representing a sensitive texture of an objective image, a self-oriented reflecsive activity, or an affect.
The life of an organism for which its predmet directed activity is a sublation of its relation to itself while its relation to itself is a sublation of its predmet directed activity – that is life mediated by psychics. Psychics (psychic relation) is a dialectical relation where an organism actively relates to its object only by relating to itself as a living organism. And vice versa, it is reflecsively related to itself only when it is actively forming its object and moving on its shape.
Paraphrasing the well-known statement of Vygotsky, we may say that psyche or psychic relation is present if and only if behind a predmet relation stands an affect and and behind an affect stands a predmet relation.
The given comprehension of the nature of psyche permits to propose a new formulation of a philogenetic criterion of psychic. It is clear that a reflecsive conception of the nature of psychic activity immediately eliminates all unicellular organisms from among the creatures endowed with psychics. Living unicellular organisms are spontaneous, productive and predmet directed. But since they do not have and cannot have any inner, reflecsive or affective plane of activity so we have no grounds whatever to ascribe a peculiar “inner” incorporeal activity to them. The intra-cellular chemical processes are not the processes of vital (predmet directed) activity. Life is a process evolving between a living organism and the world of its predmets, the indivisible atom or unit (in Vygotsky’s terms) of which is a cell. Surely it can be broken down (deconstructed) into some elementary biochemical processes or into some abstract “stimuli” and “reactions”, but we would not put them together again as a living cell.
The most elementary organism known to science in which, according to the above-given criterion, psychics could and should be assumed is Volvox, a colonial green alga shaped like a hollow sphere. Its cells joined together with thin protoplasmic cross-pieces possess outwardly oriented flagella a coordinated operation of which allows the whole organism to move actively in the aquatic habitat. Each of the cells of Volvox feeds quite independently while the total predmet directed activity of the whole organism, mediated by reflecsive relation of its sub-active elements, i.e. cells, provides for locomotion of the whole organism oriented on the gradient of its objective field.
Such organisms (irrespective of the fact whether they are auto- or heterotrophic, i.e. whether we consider them to be either plants or animals) according to the above-cited definition, can supposedly have a sensibility, or an elementary psyche. Its content is presented by some slightly differentiated sense of the predmet field expressed in the form of equally slightly differentiated general corporeal self-perception or the affect.
And yet we should note here that this slight differentiation of both predmet and affective projections of its psychic reality is such only in comparison with more differentiated sensations and affects of the highly organized animals but certainly not for the organism itself. By itself, it should be quite sufficient to ensure the predmet directed activity of the organism, its active orientation in the space of its predmetness.
The next more highly organized animal surely worthy of consideration in the evolutionary and psychological context is a hydra. It is a typical example of the coelenterates leading a fixed mode of life. Its external predmet directed activity is performed by a great number of tentacles and by extension and contraction of all its body whereas its internal activity is implemented by ciliary movement of some entodermic cells and again by extension and contraction of all its body providing for circulation of the contents of the gastrovascular cavity which is necessary for adequate digestion.
Thus a hydra implements its extra- and intra-corporeal activities by the same mechanism, i.e. contraction of the muscular fibers lying at the base of the entodermic cells and oriented along the body of the hydra and entodermic cells forming circular muscular fibers. Activity of these muscular fibers in their relation to the external world produces something like locomotive and manipulative mobility while in relation to the contents of the gastrovascular cavity it forms the gastrovascular peristalsis. 
It is reasonable that when the hydra straightens up and extends its tentacles in order to catch its victim paralyzed with its stinging filaments then, firstly, the sub-activities of its contracting fibers should be coordinated in a certain way and, secondly, the very body of the hydra should not at least contract at this moment. Consequently, external objective activity of the hydra should be mediated by the strictly hierarchic system of reflex relations where reflecsive relations of the organs of the external predmet directed motor activity occupies a higher rank than those providing for the intra-corporeal peristaltic operation. Thus for a while, objective activity can impede spontaneous activity of the hydra lest the latter interferes with the implementation of an external motor task.
The same reflex relationship of the higher and lower organs of activity or, correspondingly, the higher and lower levels of reflection still holds in the higher multi-cellular animals whose external predmet directed activity is implemented by the system of the skeletal cross-striated (cross-striped) muscles while its internal predmet directed activity is performed by the circular system of the smooth (unstriated) muscular structures.
The reflex relations mediating predmet activity of such circular structures are phylogeneticly a more ancient and primitive formation than those of the reciprocal muscles of the external effectors. Correspondingly, an animal receives from these visceral systems not clear and distinct “predmet like” perceptions but the sensations in which an objective and interoceptive aspects are subjectively not discernible.
Spontaneous sub-activity of the whole visceral system of a healthy animal at rest takes over a function of its leading activity while the sensations coming from this system take the part a general corporeal self-perception (self-sensation).
When vital activity cannot be realized by a single organism but for its expansion it requires coordinated efforts of two or more individuals then the joint activity of these individuals mediating their common predmet directed activity might be defined as an external reflexive relation.
Even among social animals, both internal and external relations are specified naturally and therefore they are presented abstractly and independent of each other. A different situation arises with a human being. The ability to position his human predmetness is not assigned to him naturally so that the system of reflexive relations mediating this predmetness is not given naturally to him either. A newborn is not able of any external predmet directed activity whatever. The abstract process of his life at this stage is conditioned by the system of the visceral activities. In this regard, the psyche of a newborn (as an embryo as well) may be defined as the visceral (paleo-kinetic) psychics. The “affective” character of activity of a newborn typical for this age is determined by specific nature of this visceral psychics stemming from the deep philogenetic roots of the visceral activity implemented by the systems of the closed upon themselves circular smooth muscular organs, i.e. the cardiovascular system, the alimentary canal and the urino-genital system.
It is vital-peristaltic activity that prevails at this age. Its only extra-corporeal predmet positioned in the act of sucking is another human being, usually the mother of a newborn. Another adult who acts at this stage as a universal object for the baby, cannot be differentiated by the latter from himself. Consequently, the relation of a baby to another human being is at the same time both predmet directed and reflexive relationship.
The end of a newborn period is marked by the split of this primordial identity. Abstract sub-activity of the eyes of a baby is focused on the meaningful center of his mother’s face, on the triangle of her eyes and lips; the sucking lips of the baby (sucking is nothing but a modus of the same peristalsis) just for an instant stop its egoistic self-seeking activity and spontaneously greet the mother with its first wide social smile positioning the same in answer.
In such a manner, the baby positions its first extra-corporeal predmet. By doing so its psyche makes a great step forward from the visceral psychics to the higher one. Thus another human being proves to be its first and universal predmet. So for the first time a thousand volt arc of the inter-subjective field begins to burn between the baby and another human being.
At this stage, justly termed as “an animation complex”, this inter-subjective field is still void, it has no external predmetness whatever. The baby and the adult enjoy the pure affect of their “emotional communication”, meeting and finding each other. But this field would comprise very soon all totality of the cultural predmets beginning with the proper organic corporeity of the baby and the things the mode of action with which is set by culture. In the beginning, they would be presented as the organs of another human being not distinguished from those of the baby and so able to attract some affective activity of the baby directed to another human being. This is the activity which is formed, individually appropriated and interiorized by the baby (actually as a system of the internal, reflexive and affective relationships) in accordance with the cultural norms and standards, ideal senses and meanings presented in their total common and separate animated activity with another human being and consequently as an ideal form of the cultural things per se.
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Summarizing we will repeat that it is impossible now to deal with so called “culture historical” psychology as well as “theory of activity” without subjecting them to criticism from really modern philosophic and logic position. It’s clear that “modern” philosophy doesn’t mean any kind of trendy doctrines like postmodernism, but good old European rationalism developed in works of Evald Ilyenkov and his disciples.
This logical not historical approach to the criticism of theoretical ideas of Vygotsky and Leont’ev is absolutely relevant because Ilyenkov shared their basic materialistic and dialectical approach. Moreover it was Ilyenkov who created Logic of Marxism with the capital letter.
Being guided by this logic we have performed an attempt to solve those theoretic problems which are still stemming the tide of psychology, condemning it to descriptive empiricism and depriving it of real empiricism and real predmetness.