On the Limits of Law in the Methodological Context of the Relationship between Anthropological and Culturological Approaches

Abstract

A variant of concretization of the application of the culturological approach to the study of law in relation to other normative systems regulating the life (functioning) of society is proposed. The culturological approach (as a set of methods that take into account and use the categories of culture) allows, from the author’s point of view, to discover and describe the fundamentals of law as a phenomenon that can manifest itself not only in theform of formalized legal norms and procedures. As a methodological problem, this approach is interpreted as interconnected with the anthropological approach, but qualitatively different from it in appeal to the human, which fundamentally distinguishes the person from other creatures.First of all, it is moral and intellectual in their unity (Reason in the ancient understanding, which developed as a tradition dating back to Solon and Socrates). The relevance and heuristic value of this approach is demonstrated by its application as a way of considering the state of legal reality in post-Soviet states, primarily in Ukraine. The established semantic content of the predicate “post” as predominantly chronological (not chronotopic) allows us to proposea version of the interpretation of legal and social processes in general, which allows us to reveal the destructive role in the erosion of law (primarily in its modern understanding as human rights) not only of Marxism As conclusions the author offers provisions requiring: 1) understanding of such situation;2) using the culturological approach as an expert tool to substantiate this understanding; 3) accentuation of practical actions in the implementation of the principle of the rule of law. In general, this can contribute to the establishment of the limits of law in its modern understanding, primarily as human rights without burdening with the rudiments of the past.