The author, highly estimating L. S. Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory of personality development makes an attempt to reconstruct moral and scientific context of its formation. It is shown that corresponding notions have been developed in physiology (A. A. Uhtomsky, N. A. Bernstein, A. G. Gurvich), in philosophy (M. M. Bahtin, A. F. Losev). Attention is paid to the concept of ideal form preceding human development, and to the problem of mediators (sign, word, symbol, myth) of the development.