Ideological Origins of Development of the Russian Communicative Theory of Law

Abstract

The communicative theory of law was formed in Russia at the beginning of the 21th century in the works of Andrei Polyakov. It is based on a very wide range of previous concepts in the philosophy of law. The article systematizes the main ideological sources of the communicative theory of law on the basis of the identification of three groups — the Russian pre-revolutionary philosophy of law, social phenomenology, supplemented by the theory of communication, and the basic provisions of the methodological search for an integral legal understanding. The development of the communicative theory of law was carried out in line with the theoretical searches of the Petersburg school of law. Therefore, the communicative theory of law recreates doctrinal connections with the Russian philosophy of law of the early twentieth century, among which the ideas of L.I. Petrazhitsky about imperative-attributive emotions source as the basis of law internal to a person, approaching the understanding of their intersubjective nature were used as a basic ideological; P.I. Novgorodtsev’s teaching about “inspiring morality”, initiating rational and moral self-disclosure of the essence of human personality; I.A. Ilyin’s idea of recognition as the basis of legal communication of people. The phenomenological complex of sources served both to substantiate the eidetic meaning of law in the communicative theory of law and to develop its intersubjective perspective. It includes the ideas of Husserl about pure consciousness, intentionality, intersubjectivity, the life world, the ideas of A. Schutz about the everyday intersubjective life world, the program of social constructivism of P. Berger and T. Lukhmann, revealing the dialectic of the subjective, individual and objective, collective in the formation of social knowledge as the foundation of social reproduction. Socio-phenomenological ideas about intersubjective interaction are calibrated in the communicative theory of law by such an ideological source as the theory of communication, generalizing the schemes of the communicative act. The last group of sources is the domestic search for integral jurisprudence at the turn of the millennium, namely, the definition of basic criteria for a methodological synthesis combining the main types of legal understanding The considered ideological sources determine the qualitative methodological originality that distinguishes the Russian communicative theory of law from the Western one.