Irrationality as an Attribute of Legal Realism in the Assessments of Russian and Foreign Scientists of the Late 19th – Early 20th Century

Abstract

The paper considers some essential aspects of the genesis of legal realism from the point of view of its philosophical foundations and their transformation in the field of legal knowledge and legal understand-ing. Legal realism, focused on the ontologization of social experience, shifted the attention of legal sci-ence to pragmatic and relativistic methods of analy-sis. As a result of these changes, the principle of knowledge of law was the beginning of irrational-ism, which was manifested in various aspects. The variability of empirical content in the field of legal philosophy was often the reason for refusing to search for regularities in it. In the 19th century, the philosophical attitudes of pragmatism and relativism became the basis for the substantial strengthening of the position of realistic approaches to law. One of the most revealing themes of the use and tenden-tious movement towards the principle of irrational-ism was the category of “normality”.