On the issue of classification of legal research

The purpose of the study is to determine the features and criteria for classifying legal studies in terms of their completeness and sufficiency of coverage of all possible varieties of legal research. In the framework of this study, issues related to the justification of the allocation of additional types of legal research are also considered: the division of all legal research into "positive" and "critical"; criteria for the relationship between these types of research are identified. Also, this article discusses possible errors in conducting "positive" and "critical" legal research, and gives their typology. The ways of preventing mistakes in conducting legal research are also determined. The research methods, the results of which are presented in this article, include general scientific methods: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction, generalization, modeling. In addition to the criteria for classifying scientific legal research existing in legal science, it is proposed to distinguish "positive legal research" and "critical legal research" into independent types of scientific legal research. At the same time, legal reality always acts as the object of "positive research" in jurisprudence, in the form of interrelated and interacting phenomena of social reality, while the subject of positive research is always any patterns describing and explaining legal phenomena, or the legal side of certain social phenomena; the object of "critical" research in jurisprudence is supported by any legal theories, concepts and hypotheses. The subject of "critical legal research" is a critical analysis of a hypothesis, concept or theory in legal science. If the purpose of "positive legal research" is to discover new patterns of formation, development, functioning of legal phenomena, or to identify defects and develop scientifically sound proposals for improving the legal regulation of a particular sphere of society, then the purpose of "critical" research in legal science is to determine the validity of a particular scientific theory, hypothesis or concept.