Makarenko L. О. The main approaches in the study of legal culture in the modern legal science
The article describes the main approaches in the study of legal culture in modern legal science. Noted that the methodology is considered as a set of basic provisions and requirements of the theory of knowledge, the source of philosophical and dialectical laws and categories, a General logical principles, practices, methods and techniques that science uses to describe, analyze and study the various parties of objective reality, and in the search of new knowledge.
It is incontrovertible that the methodological importance for understanding the legal culture has different approaches to the study of this phenomenon. The existing in scientific literature approaches to the understanding of culture in General and legal culture in particular, are reduced generally to the anthropological, sociological, philosophical, axiological.
An anthropological approach to the understanding of culture assumes that culture covers all that distinguishes human life and society from nature, which exists, that is, all aspects of human life. Culture includes all that man has created and characterizes the historicity of his existence in the world.
A sociological approach of legal culture is considered as the qualitative state of the legal life of society, characterized by the achieved level of development of the legal system – the current state and level of legal consciousness, legal science, legal system, enforcement of law and order, legal education, and the degree of the warranty of fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual. However. the qualitative state of the legal life of society is examined through the analysis of the States of the subsystems that form it. In particular, to such systems include legal culture and legal culture of the society.
Philosophical approach to legal culture directly connects the legal culture of the General context of culture, thus including the entire legal sphere to the system of values which produced and broadcast the society. However philosophical vision of legal culture grounded in the idea of development, which allows to distinguish a developed legal culture from Protvino: in respect of any legal culture, one that exists or existed, it is always possible to speak of a certain qualitative level of his being, which is determined by the comparison.
Axiological (valuable) approach to understanding the culture allows you to combine various qualities around the concept of value, because values and determine from the outside, from the depths of individual and social life that we call culture and society, namely, values are the core culture. Noted that culture serves primarily as relevant to the individual and society as a whole value system. It is regarded as a set of values, created and developed by mankind during its history. The totality (system) of values, which characterize a certain culture or cultural environment, represents the result of the spiritual work that is performed by the whole society, and especially of “ideologues” whose professional activity lies in the reflection and expression of public interests. Based on the foregoing, it should be noted that the legal culture is a set of values that are created by people in the legal field. It is this understanding of the legal culture reflected in scientific works of many scientists.
Important way analysis of legal culture is a system approach, which is to identify systemwide characteristics that define the specifics of legal culture in a certain historical period, or its separate elements.
Structural-functional approach to characterize its structural elements and their functions. Usually the structure of the legal culture there are two main elements – the legal consciousness and legal behavior. There are also point of view regarding the inclusion in the structural elements of legal culture, legal institutions, providing a legal control, regulate and exercise rights, as well as criteria of political evaluation of law and legal behavior, legal science.
According to the activity approach culture is a specific organization of a specific historical experience of the social human activity and forms of its recording, storage and translation. However, definitions of culture mainly focuses on either one side or the characterization of human activities. In this aspect, culture is understood as a synonym of creative activity. Proponents of this approach emphasize that legal culture arises, develops and converted through the activities.
Exists in the scientific literature point of view on the feasibility of establishing an integrated approach to understanding legal culture, which would become the methodological basis for the analysis of all manifestations of legal culture. This is due to the fact that legal culture is the social and communicative nature as a realm of the spirit, like morality and religion, the right gives rise to legal consciousness and legal behavior as a natural result of the externalization and institutionalization of social relations. Legal culture will contribute to the realization of human freedom as a category of social existence.
Summing up stated that discussed in the article approaches to understanding of such complex phenomena as the legal culture is not contradictory, but rather complement it.
Key words: scientific knowledge, methodology, culture, authenticity, objectivity.
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