Monism and Reductionism in Legal Positivism

Abstract

The study into the processes of methodological evolution of legal positivism as a key trend in world legal thought is significant in terms of understanding its fundamental principles and prospects for future development. The experience of scientific reflection in Anglo-American legal thought allows us to take a broader look at the context of research into positivist methodology and ontology in Russian legal thinking, since it offers new significant theoretical data and an alternative vision. At the same time, no adequate study of the alternative positivist dogma in the context of reflection of its evolutionary processes has so far been carried out in Russian science to the proper extent. The purpose of the study is to analyze the processes of critical analysis of classical legal positivism in the Anglo-American legal tradition. The research shows that such reflection is carried out through understanding the problem of monism and reductionism as methodological principles, most widely represented in the classical positivism of John Austin and Hans Kelsen. These principles are expressed, on the one hand, in reducing law to a single source of origin, and on the other hand, in simplifying the understanding of processes and ignoring the diversity of legal phenomena. Monism and reductionism were overcome in the process of understanding the fundamental issues of positivism using a new method of conceptual analysis. It is concluded that the transition to the modern stage of development of positivism in Anglo-American legal thought occurred due to overcoming the simplified monistic and reductionist understanding of law. The results of the study contribute to the construction of an inter-doctrinal dialogue and understanding the features of the formation and transformation of a competing paradigm, as well as to overcoming the dogmatism of the domestic positivist doctrine