A Semiotic Foundation for a Human Psychology: Review of Jaan Valsiner’s New General Psychology

Abstract

In General Human Psychology (2021), Jaan Valsiner discloses the synthesis of his last 30 years of research in psychology. Reuniting semiotics and psychology in a new general science, he proposes an epistemological and methodological systematization of psychology as science of the human being. Within a semiotic framework, Valsiner presents a vision of the human being as Unitas Multiplex, steady in the unity but essentially dynamic, a meaning-maker constantly engaged in the construction and use of signs. He does so through a top-down sociocultural semiotic empirical and analytical investigation of human’s higher psychological functions and phenomenic manifestations, in all their complexities, in a fascinating journey over societies and history. His goal is to put back general psychology into the central place of psychology as human science. In the following review, I unfold the core arguments composing Valsiner’s proposal, highlighting then the necessity of a psychological synthesis in a new general ideographic systematization.