The problem of anti-psychologism in Hans Kelsen’s “Pure Theory of Law”

Abstract

This article examines the nature and specificity of the criticism of psychologism as a theoretical-methodological orientation towards studying law and its interpretation, which in particular was associated with such version of interpretation of law as the “Pure Theory of Law” of Hans Kelsen. More in-depth representations of modern legal theory in understanding the patterns of law and its essential aspects requires the due coverage of the history of psychological and anti-psychological approaches towards law that form of the major oppositions in the development of legal though at the turn of the XIX – XX centuries. Multiple aspects of H. Kelsen's legal views are yet to be examined, including the correlation of his doctrine with other doctrines, as well as the nature of substantiation of law and the analysis of legal phenomena. The scientific novelty of lies in the fact that based on the analysis of legal views of the Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen wirh his pronounced claim to exclude all “non-legal’ elements, it is revealed that a significant part of conceptual-logical apparatus of Kelsen’s teaching and the approaches towards substantiation of law were psychological in nature. Unlike the objective-idealistic positions of H. Kelsen, legal Neo-Kantianism was methodologically more accurate in elucidation of interrelation between the actual legal phenomenon and the role of gnoseological methods of perception and comprehension of law. The assessment of H. Kelsen’s doctrine as the theory of law is subject to criticism in this article, since in reality it is limited to the issues of legal methodology.