Portraits of Legal Scholars. Georges Gurvitch (1894-1965): A Project of Sociology of Law
Abstract
The present article examines the majour achievements of an outstanding Russian-French philosopher, lawyer and sociologist Georges Gurvitch, as well as the principal ideas of his scientific conception. The author focuses on the role Gurvitch played in the elaboration of the methodology for socio-legal studies, and the importance of this scientific project for contemporary sociological studies in law. The author demonstrates the connecting link between the philosophical ideas of Gurvitch about law with the key tenets of Russian philosophy; on this basis the author concludes in favor of topicality of these ideas from the standpoint of the continued integration of Russian theoretical jurisprudence into the worldwide legal science. The main concepts and schemes of the sociology of law by Gurvitch are examined by the author, including the concepts of sociability and social law. These concepts are central to the legal conception of Gurvitch which sets out to overcome the shortages of the methodological individualism inherent to the classical Western legal philosophy of Modernity with avoiding the extremities of communitarism which are typical for the legal philosophy of Antiquity and of the Oriental world-outlook. Another direction of synthesis for Gurvitch was to reconcile the methodological principles of positivism and of metaphysics, which in the field of sociology are confronted as the positivistic methods of quantitative sociology and the abstract methods of social philosophy. Gurvitch sought to triumph over this conflict through postulating an ideal-realist method which allowed justification of integrative approach to law.
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