Scientific problems in Ukrainian jurisprudence are among its least developed aspects. This is particularly evident in the current period of its development, when domestic legal science and philosophy of law are at a turning point in their worldview and methodological traditions, reevaluating their own achievements and problems in a new way, and actively searching for their place among other European legal sciences and philosophy of law. This is what determines the conceptual relevance of the article. The aim of the study is to analyse the essence of M. Koziubra’s concept of understanding and knowledge of law. Its specific objectives are to reveal the quintessence of this thinker’s answers to the questions “Does law exist in reality?”, “Is law exclusively the result of its knowledge?” and “Is it possible to comprehend the meaning of law outside its understanding?”. The heuristic tools of the study are based on the general scientific principles of objectivity and historicism, axiological, genetic and systemic approaches, and methods of substantive and functional analysis of law. As a result of a comprehensive analysis of the outlined problem, the authors made the following conclusions: M. Koziubra belongs to a number of outstanding figures of Ukrainian jurisprudence and domestic philosophy of law, and his concept of understanding and cognition of law is an extraordinary achievement of all Ukrainian legal thought. In terms of its potential, it is in no way inferior to comparable analogues of well-known foreign theorists and philosophers of contemporary law. He complemented and enriched the dynamic and procedural perception of law with his panoramic vision. The article systematically reveals M. Koziubra’s conceptual analysis of the ontological problems of law, his argumentation and conclusion that law as an empirical object does not exist and that the defining properties of law must be sought not in its real existence, which does not exist, but in its ideal existence, the meaning of which is belonging. According to Koziubra’s concept of law, it is a way of being in the human world. The authors of the article also reveal the reasons for Koziubra’s critical attitude towards the possibility of only scientific knowledge of law, the essence of his argumentation of this position – it is based on understanding the nature of law not as existing, but as proper. Particular attention is paid to highlighting the place and role of the philosophy of law in M. Koziubra’s concept of understanding and cognition of law, the disclosure of his position that without the inclusion of the philosophy of law in the concepts of understanding and cognition of law, the latter are unattainable in all their meanings and completeness, and the explanation of M. Koziubra’s final conclusion that the essence of the goal of the philosophy of law is to clarify the semantic content of law as a value.

Authored books

1. Grotius Hugo, De Jure Belli ac Pacis. Libri Tres (At the Clarendon Press; Humphrey Milford 1925).

2. Heisenberg W, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (Harper Perennial Modern Classics 2007).

3. Vreeland H, Hugo Grotius: The Father of the Modern Science of International Law (Little, Colo 1986).

4. Koziubra M, Praktichna filosofiya prava (Duh i Litera 2024) (in Ukrainian).

5. Maksimov S, Filosofiya prava: suchasni interpretaciyi: Vibrani praci: statti, analit. oglyadi, perekladi (2003–2010) (Pravo 2010) (in Ukrainian).

Edited and translated books

6. Ciceron Mark Tulij, Pro zakoni. Pro derzhavu. Pro prirodu bogiv (Apriori 2020) (in Ukrainian).

7. Zagalna teoriya prava: pidruchnik (M Koziubra (red) Vaite 2015) (in Ukrainian). 

Journal articles

8. Zayec A, ‘Naukovij spadok vidatnogo ukrayinskogo vchenogo-pravoznavcya, pedagoga Mikoli Koziubri’ [2025] 3 Pravo Ukrayini (in Ukrainian).

Theses

9. Koziubra M, ‘Vzaymodeistvye sotsyalystycheskoho prava y obshchestvennoho soznanyia’ (avtoreferat dis d-ra yurid nauk, 1980) (in Russian).