In his work, the author compares and analyzes such concepts as human, person, personality, entity, individual, and self. He considers the views of major philosophers and psychologists of the past on these concepts. There are ideas of P. Florensky, A. Losev, G. Shpet, L. Rubinstein, L .Bozhovich, A .Leontiev, S. Freud and other scientists writing on the content, functions, origin and value of the psychological phenomena mentioned above. The views of a person, individual, and Self have undergone dramatic changes over time. Russian philosophers wrote about the impossibility to define the individual, they considered it a myth, miracle, mystery, and at the same time limit of self-construction or self-creation. Russian psychologists dropped the concept of individual below the concept of personality, and even equated with the subject. In addition, for a while the identity was considered a product of the collective. The notion of Self is considered in a similar way. It is either identified with the subject or object, or it is said to propagate using vegetative means, or like the individual may manifest properties of a soluble substance. However, the Self is recognized to be characterized by generating creative abilities and functions. Psychoanalysts first considered Self as a mental institution, then as a main authority or substructure of personality. S.Freud builds a topology of the following structure: Ego, Super-Ego, Id, each of them performing their own functions and keeping their own energy. S. Freud spoke about the historical implications of mental acts. Considerable attention is paid to the origin of Self. The development of the Self does not occur automatically, and there are concepts put forward by the psychoanalysts and psychologists.

The author emphasizes that the paper compares psychological approaches to personality and psychoanalytic approaches to the Self. In psychology, we are dealing with a person (a person?) without Self. In psychoanalysis, we are dealing with Self, but without personality. Both psychologists and psychoanalysts tend to reduce the Self to the individual, subject, representative, or mere body.

The paper is devoted to Boris Dmitrievich Parygin, a talented Russian psychologist and educator, who trained many generations of students and postgraduates.It briefly touches upon the main facts of the scholar’s life, highlights the results of his research and reveals the scope of his scientific and educational work. It is shownthat B.D. Parygin was also an outstanding science develper. Upon his initiative, the Department of Social Psychology and the first “Social psychological research” laboratoryon the basis of Leningrad Gertsen Teacher-Training Institute was the first one to be established in the USSR.

There are facts that point to Boris Parygin’s contribution to the establishment and development of social psychology. The author notes that the scholar established the basisof methodology and developed the subject area of social psychology as an independent science, and justified its status in the humanities.

Particular emphasis is put on the conceptually important aspects of scientific creativity of B.D. Parygin’s recent years that are relevant to today critical problems of humandevelopment, culture, and society.

The author writes about the scholar’s idea of personal integrity, humanistic function of psychology and the coherent worldview principle of dialogue as an alternative toanti-human communication.

The article comprehensively analyzes the specifics of scientific relations between the two leading Russian psychologists A.N. Leontiev and L.S. Vygotsky. It is shown how initial relationship between the teacher (L.Vygotsky) and an attentive disciple (A. Leontiev) was replaced disengagement, search and defense of their own views. The author demonstrates the dynamics of psychological ideas of these two scientists. He highlights different approaches to the problem of activity and identity, which made them part in a certain period of time.Considerable attention is paid to the scientific work of A. Leontiev, who lived and created in the socialist times of ideological pressure. It is shown how in spite of this adverse factor Alexei Leontiev, the founder of the activity theory, where moral principles are out of place where a person becomes its “product”, managed to come to the need for a special study of personality, his/her moral value sphere. Referring to specific works of A. Leontiev, the author shows the evolution of A. Leontiev ideas as “leader of the Marxist psychology” in the internal context of his scientific research, which has led to the fact that he erased the fundamental differences with L. Vygotsky on the problem of experiences and activities.

The author suggests that in his last years A.N. Leontiev’s views were close to the “late” L. Vygotsky’s viewpoint, taking the side of his Master, an older friend, and at the same time, as it is a usual thing in the academic life, the main opponent. This proves the fact that two years before his death in 1977, A.N. Leontiev actually agreed with Vygotsky on the problem of experiences and activities.