New Historiography of Political and Legal Thought as an Urgent Task of Legal Sciences

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of forming a more effective and promising historiography of political and legal thought. The reasons for the unsatisfactory state of some existing approaches, both in foreign and Russian literature, are seen both in the objectively occurring processes of changes in social requirements for the quality of legal knowledge, and in various practices based on outdated and often ideological models. Critical remarks about various aspects of historiographical approaches in the field of the history of legal thought are conditioned by specific observations and in no way imply the denial of the best examples of intellectual culture. The leitmotif of this study is the position that the history of legal thought in its historiographical basis, as well as spiritual culture in general, does not imply ideological constructions carried out for various reasons, but only two essential aspects, each of which should have equal significance and registration in the field of modern practices of mastering the history of legal thought: event and everyday layers (by analogy with the cultural ideas of A. M. Panchenko).