In recent decades, a question has been raised concerning generalization and comprehension of the elements comprising the special scientific picture of the world pertaining to comparative legal studies and disciplines. In this context, the problem is seen in the imaginary separation of the philosophical foundations underlying comparative legal studies and the classification of legal orders formed on their basis.

The article aims at reconstructing the connection between philosophical doctrines, development of philosophy and theory of various sciences and the establishment of the doctrine of the special in law in the context of the establishment of theoretical foundations underlying comparative legal studies, in particular, the genesis of the picture of the world in comparative legal science.

The article proves that the idea of the social special in law emerged naturally and ensued from the contradiction between the a priori declaration of the global stadiality of legal development and the study of specific mechanisms through which legal systems interact. To a large extent, this idea was a byproduct, firstly, of the understanding that the importance and the real spreading of religious doctrines and Roman law was non-universal and, secondly, of the regional nature, cultural and other conditionality of the ideas of natural law, thirdly, of the attempt to determine the boundaries of ethnic and cultural traditions of peoples which do not coincide with the borders of States, and fourthly, of the identified unequal connections between different national legal orders.

In the second half of the 18th – first third of the 19thcentury the theory was developed about the family of legal systems as the average and most objective unit between the national legal order and the universal legal development of humanity, which is an internally related phenomenon, and the existence of which is materialized in the form of special immanent elements within the framework of national law. The scholars of those times believed that this special in law can be defined as the sum of essential elements and interactions which have developed historically and are common to a certain group of legal orders. This is the highest unit of legal development and the most extensive object of legal science; at the same time, higher-level generalizations are subjective and pertain to the subject matter of philosophy. The range of unresolved issues concerning legal families and their classification over the period under study has already been singled out by some scholars as a field of scientific knowledge.

In the singling-out of the special in law, the most developed criterion was the linguistic and cultural one. Besides, some scholars took the following as the basis for defining the separate in law: physical and geographical determinism, areas of spread of religions, affiliation with the Roman legal tradition, division into Western and Eastern law. It is proved that these theories have shown their inconsistency, and also subsidiarity with regard to the theory of legal families.

Bibliography

Authored books

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Edited books

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Encyclopedias

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Journal articles

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37. – –, ‘Pohliad na nimetske pravoznavstvo’ [‘The View on the German Legal Science’] 2011 (2) Porivnialno-pravovi doslidzhennia (in Ukrainian).

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39. Petryshyn O, ‘Problemy sotsializatsii prava ta sotsiolohizatsii pravovoi nauky’ [Aspects of law socialization and legal science socioligization] (2011) 8 Pravo Ukrainy (in Ukrainian).

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Thesis

41. Aslamov N. ‘Filosofiya istorii nemetskoy istoricheskoy shkoly prava’ [‘The Philosophy of Law of German Historical School of Law’] (diss kand filos nauk, 2012) (in Russian).