Criminal Law Doctrine and Philosophical Theories. Reflections on the Book of Sergey A. Bochkarev (2019) Filosofiya ugolovnogo prava: postanovka voprosa [Philosophy of Criminal Law: Posing of the Question]. Moscow: Norma. 424 pp

Abstract

In the modern context the interest to researches in the area of phi lo-sophical doctrines of the branches of law and, in particular, philosophy of criminal law is increasing. The monograph by S.A. Bochkarev reflects new approaches towards the research of eternal problems of crime and punishment — interdisciplinary and socially significant ones, in its nature. They are based upon the attempt of synthesizing the philosophical and legal (criminal law) areas of expertise.Having conducted the revision of philosophical and legal reflection since anti quity and up to the Modern times, the author makes a conclusion on the existence of own school of philosophy of criminal law in Russia, the achievements of which, however, turned out to be unclaimed by contemporary researchers. Among the drawbacks of cognizing criminal law reality the author underlines static ideological attitudes and inelasticity of the subject of cognition, imperfection of the methodology employed by them. S.A. Bochkarev also draws attention to the low level of development of criminal law-making and gaps in the law enforcement practice.The author specially focuses on stereotypes that have formed in respect to "sense-making" categories of theory and philosophy of criminal law — crime and punishment, thus emphasizing the infeasibility of adequate research of these categories without analysis of their ontology-based backbone. The standpoint of the author towards virtualization of criminal law space is of tremendous interest. In his opinion, virtual law concept presents a conglomerate of many cultures and values; virtual space is immanently not connected with the territory, while virtual time does not negate and change the real one. Nowadays virtual reality is becoming a way of existence and interaction between people and with due regard to virtualization of criminal law space a series of norms of criminal law on the elements of crime needs to be adjusted.The book is multidimensional and meaningful; it calls for thoughtful reading and reflections on what is being read while broad discussion of the issues raised in it will be conducive to development of the Russian legal science.