Methodological Features of the Ancient Jurisprudence

Abstract

The article is devoted to the methodological peculiarities of the ancient jurisprudence. The ancient world is undoubtedly an extremely important period not only in the world history, but also in the history of the development of philosophical knowledge and positive sciences, and therefore in the history of methodology, arising and functioning at the intersection of philosophy and science The methodology is a philosophical discipline, which sets the correct methods, approaches, ways of learning, and also creates necessary tools of scientific research, including those in legal sciences. The key aim of the methodology is an efficient organization and management of knowledge as a purposeful process of receiving and processing of new and reliable scientific facts. Special significance of the ancient period of methodology development is that it is this historical point that laid the foundations of the methodological principle of the matrix of cognitive activity. Undoubtedly, from the objective point of view it is only possible to speak on the elements of scientific knowledge and methodology in the period of the ancient world, as the science of that era could not be used as a smooth and systematic production of scientific knowledge on the basis of a comprehensive study of the reality. However, it is in the ancient times when a methodological basis of juridical science began to emerge, especially due to the theoretical efforts of the Greek thinkers and distinguished Roman jurists. We can certainly talk about cognitive multi-directional efforts of the scholars of ancient societies: Greek thinkers undertook the development of a theoretical side of political legal perspective, and Roman lawyers became widely known through practical activities in the field of State and Law. Roman law, was not only the final stage in the evolution of the ancient law, but it was the outcome of the overall development of legal theory and practice of the ancient world absorbing many important achievements of the legal thought of the greater part of the advanced countries of the ancient world. Thus, this article covers a rather ambiguous question on methodological grounds of theory and jurisprudence of the ancient time.