On the Scientific Status of Jurisprudence

This article examines the ontological and methodological foundations of jurisprudence, critically assessing its unique position within the system of sciences. The study’s relevance stems from persistent unresolved problems in legal philosophy and the consequent fragility of legal science’s methodological underpinnings. Its central aim is to advance a conceptual framework for the philosophical understanding of jurisprudence. The analysis demonstrates that law cannot be reduced either to arbitrary expressions of human will (individual or collective) or to mere reflections of objective natural laws. While the notion of natural law offers profound insights into law’s essence, the article argues for a crucial distinction: what is termed “natural law” is neither strictly natural nor strictly law in the conventional sense. Methodologically, the study draws on Immanuel Kant’s philosophical system and the legal-philosophical works of Sergey S. Alekseev, positing that natural law constitutes postulates of legal reason – those are priori conditions that enable any coherent normative legal judgments. At the foundation of natural law lies the concept of justice, understood as a proportional correspondence between merit and retribution (in both positive and negative dimensions). The article further develops the notion of a priori forms of legal sensibility, comprising 1) the recognition of individuals as moral agents whose actions are evaluable against universal justice; 2) the mandated societal response by authorized institutions upholding this universal standard. Consequently, jurisprudence – along with ethics – is shown to be fundamentally philosophical rather than scientific in its nature; it represents an applied branch of legal philosophy. The study concludes that the historical lack of legal philosophy within Russia’s 20th century intellectual tradition has contributed significantly to contemporary jurisprudence’s methodological deficiencies.

Keywords: philosophy of law; legal positivism; natural law; postulates of legal reason; legal equality; legal justice; universality of law; transcendentalism of law