Integrative Understanding of the Nature of the State: Progress or Misconception?

The paper examines the problem of the essence of the modern State in the context of justifying new approaches to the assessment of this category in legal science. Understanding philosophical categories of the essence and content in relation to the phenomena of the State and law was an important direction of Soviet theoretical jurisprudence. At the turn of the 20thџ21st centuries, the trend changed: dialectical-materialistic understanding of the essence of the State was actively criticized for its unambiguity, dogmatism and irrelevance for modern democratic regimes. Thus, the problem of studying the essence of the State lost its significance due to the absolute dominance of the ideology of «sociality» of the State. Nevertheless, under the influence of the international political situation against the background of a new round of competition between ideological and political-legal teachings of Russia and the West, the problem of understanding the essence of the State has again become relevant, but its understanding in the manner characteristic of the postmodern paradigm is often based not on methods of scientific knowledge, but on ethical, moral and ideology of the authors. In this regard, the author analyzes the current state of the theory of the essence of the State, gives the basic concepts of the essence of the modern State: class, general social, axiological, integrative characteristics. Based on formal logic, the author argues in favor of the failure of teachings providing for the possibility of combining the class and general social properties of the State. The author attempts to critically comprehend an integrative understanding of the essence of the State. The author examines the general philosophical meaning of the category «essence of the phenomenon», proposes a methodology for assessing the essence of the State, taking into account the dialectical development of this political and legal institution, and highlights the changes in the form and content of the State in different historical periods.