About the Hermeneutic Method in Law

Introduction. This scientific article is devoted to the consideration of the problem of using the hermeneutic method of cognition of legal phenomena in modern domestic jurisprudence. Purpose. The purpose of the article is to show the potential possibilities of the hermeneutic method in the field of law. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were set: 1) to substantiate the significance of the methodological foundations of jurisprudence; 2) to consider the issue of the concept of hermeneutics in a historical aspect (the views of Aristotle, V. Dilthey, F. Schleiermacher, F. Nietzsche, G.G. Gadamer, M. Weber and others; 3) to analyze the views of Russian scientists substantiating the need for the hermeneutic method in the study of legal phenomena (D.A. Kerimov, M.M. Rassolov, P.M. Rabinovich, V.A. Suslov, I.L. Chestnov); 4) show the weaknesses of the hermeneutic method in jurisprudence, the arguments of the opponents of this approach (V.M. Syrykh, I.Yu. Kozlikhina, V.N. Zhukov and others). Methodology. When writing this article, we used a complex of both special (philological, cybernetic, psychological and others) and private-scientific (formal-legal, interpretation of law and others) methods of studying legal reality. Results. The result of the study in the framework of this article was the following: without denying some fruitfulness of metaphysics, which is the basis of the analyzed method, we note that the hermeneutics method is practically not used in jurisprudence due to the lack of an appropriate methodology and is replaced by the historical way (method) of interpreting legal norms. Conclusion. In conclusion, it is summarized that even those scholars who pinned certain hopes on legal hermeneutics in the research plan have now begun to doubt its potential, believing that this approach to law as an independent has not yet taken place. Paying attention to the fact that the last decade is characterized by the search for a new paradigm, they are increasingly trying to find it outside the law, to attract to the study of law the knowledge developed in the bosom of other sciences, it is emphasized that such attempts should be welcomed, but only if they deepen our knowledge of law, and not of the subject of those sciences to which we turn.