The Hermeneutic Method in Modern Domestic Jurisprudence

Abstract

This scientific article deals with the problem of the use of the hermeneutic method of obtaining knowledge of legal phenomena. The purpose of the article is to show the potential of the hermeneutic method in the field of law.  In the furtherance of this goal, the following objectives were set: 1) to justify the significance of the methodological basis of jurisprudence; 2) to consider the concept of hermeneutics in the historical aspect (views of Aristotle, Wilhelm Diltey, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Max Weber and others); 3) to analyze the views of domestic scientists who justifying the necessity of using of the hermeneutic method by the study of legal phenomena (Djangir Abbasovich Kerimov, Mikhail Mikhailovich Rassolov, Petr Moiseyevich Rabinovich, Vitaly Andreevich Suslov, Ilya Lvovich Chestnov); 4) to show weak points of the hermeneutic method in jurisprudence, arguments of opponents of this approach (Vladimir Mikhailovich Syryh, Igor Yurevich Kozlikhin, Vyacheslav Nikolayevich Zhukov and others). The result of the conducted research were the following provisions: 1) without denying some fruitfulness of the metaphysics which is the basis of the analyzed method, we notice that the hermeneutics method is not applied practically in the law because there is no the corresponding technique and it is replaced with a historical method of interpretation of legal norms. In conclusion, it should be stressed that even those scientists who placed certain research hopes on the legal hermeneutics have now begun to doubt its potential, believing that this approach of the study of the law as an independent one has not yet taken place.