METATHEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF STATE AND LEGAL THOUGHT IN RUSSIA IN THE 19th – EARLY 20th CENTURY

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to search for advantages of the metatheoretical knowledge of law in relation to traditional objects. In the discussion of the modern type of scientific rationality (post-classical or post-non-classical), the author proposes to shift the emphasis to the very possibility of applying the metatheoretical method to the traditional object of research of theoretical-legal and historical-legal science – the history of political and legal doctrines. Scientific novelty lies in the development of the author’s approach to understanding the pre-revolutionary domestic state and legal thought of the 19th – early 20th centuries as an integral object influenced by socio-cultural and specific historical factors. Using metatheoretical tools, an algorithm for studying the process of formalization of the domestic pre-revolutionary science of state law is proposed, which during this period was experiencing the stage of its sectoral formation. The conclusion is formulated that the legal teachings of Russian pre-revolutionary political scientists, which were a striking result of interdisciplinarity in law, should be assessed as a single scientific phenomenon, the regularities of its evolution are explained on the basis of the metatheory of law. The conclusion is made that further improvement of the metatheoretical toolkit has every reason to promote the progressive development of Russian analytical jurisprudence.