The relevance of the study is conditioned upon the pluralisation of the ideological, philosophical, and methodological foundations of legal science and attempts to theoretically overcome the competition of “positivist” and “natural” approaches to understanding law as part of an integrative legal understanding taking place against the background of such pluralisation. The purpose of the study is to identify the epistemological difficulties in constructing integral concepts of legal understanding, suggest solutions for them, and justify the option of integrative understanding of law based on a combination of dialectical and need-based methodological approaches. Main research methods. Based on dialectical logic, the essence of integrative legal understanding is covered as an attempt to synthesise contradictory approaches to understanding law, the process of integrating legal understanding is interpreted as removing contradictions in the development of legal phenomena, and integration appears as including individual moments of such development in the dynamic integrity. Based on the need-based approach, the study justifies the criterion for understanding certain phenomena as legal. Importance of the present study. It is proved that the integration of different legal understanding is a task that can be performed based on dialectical rather than formal logic, meanwhile preserving differences and contradictions between the combined conceptual elements. The study proves that during upon satisfying the needs, the properties of certain phenomena are integrated into human existence, acquiring the status of vital, and therefore normatively significant components of such existence. Therefore, the rule of law becomes the result of activity-practical integration of the phenomena serving as necessary components of human life in society
