Valsiner, J., Marsico, G., (2020). Deep Humanity Returns. In R. E. Innis (2020), Between Philosophy and Cultural Psychology: Analytical Resources at the Thresholds of Sense. Psychology and Cultural Developmental Science, (pp. vii.viii), New York: Springer New York:Springer

The present monograph is an excellent example of such explication of humanity in the developing field of cultural psychology. As psychology attempts to preserve its image as science it has become—over the last century—mechanistic and overlooking of basic human life issues. Cultural psychology emerged in the 1990s as an effort to not reduce the socially embedded selves to the neural networks of the brain or the seemingly solid reduction to genes. In this effort, it has re-discovered the pragmatist philosophical traditions of John Dewey, George Herbert Mead and William James, not to speak of the existential philosophical traditions of the 20th century. In this book Innis weaves an intricate carpet of ideas that link our present day cultural psychology with the contemporary semiotic presentations of the human ways of living. From his deeply humanistic perspective Innis brings back to psychology—through his contribution to cultural psychology—the centrality of philosophical feeling-through of complex issues of human existence. This has been of inspiration for some young scholars in the field of cultural psychology. This is the case of the commentaries that nicely complement Innis’ monograph and that are the extraordinary results of the fertilizing work that Bob has been done over decades in different places in the world.