Interpretation of law as a problem of legal hermeneutics: some questions of theory

Abstract

The article considers the issue of interpretation of law in the context of the methodology of legal hermeneutics. The key concept of hermeneutics is the concept of understanding. The modern category of understanding is not a way for a person to know the world, but a way of being in the world and has an ontological (rather than psychological, epistemological or logical) character, ahead of any human activity as a prediction (preconception). If hermeneutics is a reconstruction of objectified semantic intentions, then legal hermeneutics is a search in human existence, society for the above values of law and their further formalization in written law. Thus, the interpretation of law in a broad sense is the finding in the material and / or spiritual spheres of its own values and the further implementation of the found in real social relations through the appropriate procedures of lawmaking and law enforcement. Such values as good and justice are in particular such value bases. And it is the observance of the latter in the lawmaking process that will allow the legislator with a high degree of probability to identify the normative legal acts adopted by him as those based on legal principles. In this regard, we must agree that the non-classical theory of cognition, in which thinking is considered, above all, as a process of creating meaning or understanding, which occurs in the unity of different types of cognition – sensory, intuitive and rational, more adequate to the nature of intellectual activity. in the course of understanding the law, which has a pronounced practical component. In addition to the interpretation of law as an objective phenomenon, which is not yet mediated by positive legislation,the subject field of research is also the rules of law, which have already undergone such a transformation. The need for interpretation of legal requirements is due to the possibility of unequal understanding of legal norms and their inadequate implementation in the process of law enforcement. This direction of interpretation in science is better known. Thus, most scholars distinguish between linguistic (linguistic), logical, historical, systemic, teleological ways of interpreting the rules of law. It is noted that the teleological method of interpretation of law corresponds to the hermeneutic method of interpretation. The opinion is shared that at the present stage of development there is a of formation of a new direction of legal science with a tendency to formation of a new integrative concept of hermeneutic legal understanding. This type of legal understanding is obliged to give a holistic view of law, overcoming the limitations of sociological, historical, legal and other approaches to it. Keywords: Interpretation of law, legal hermeneutics, ontological status of law, ontological status of legal hermeneutics.