ACTIVITY APPROACH AS AN OBJECT OF LAW SCIENCE GNOSEOLOGY

Abstract

Abstract. The article is dedicated to clarifying the state of research of activity approach as a theory and means of cognition of legal phenomena by domestic law science. The problems of the activity approach as the modern jurisprudence methodology element are covered and the classification of scientific papers, the object of knowledge of which is the activity approach, is carried out. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the understanding of law based on the normative worldview provisions under which law is perceived only as the public authority’s will reflected in the text of the law stipulated the use of methods aimed at clarifying the legal phenomena’s sense. The European vector of Ukraine’s development and the harmonization of national legislation with the acquis communautaire are the factors in changing the methodological paradigm of the perception of law. It is emphasized that the use of the activity approach for the legal phenomena study remains an insufficiently researched thematics; domestic scholars mainly focus on certain aspects of the activity approach use in the field of law. Analysis of the activity approach source base study as a component of jurisprudence became the basis for distinguishing two groups of sources. The first group consists of scientific papers, the object of gnoseology of which is the activity approach as a modern legal methodology structural component. This group of scientific papers is divided into the following subgroups: sources covering the issues of methodology as a means of gnoseology of legal phenomena; sources directly explaining the issues of activity approach as methodology part. Positive statements about the possibilities of legal phenomena knowledge with methodological tools based on the general and scientific paradigm are given in the scientific literature. There is no single approach to the elements of the modern jurisprudence methodology The second group includes scientific papers, the object of gnoseology of which is the activity approach as a jurisprudence component in the context o of law understanding theories. A great number of these papers is dedicated to the communicative law theory, the fundamental provisions and conclusions of which might be the basis of the activity approach to understanding of law. It is summarized that the legal phenomena nature is a factor in the expediency of methodological pluralism using and the possibility of activity approach applying to cognition of law. Some Western scholars, considering lawyers’ activities as a source of law, do not focus on the activity’s theory provisions; activity approach as a means of legal phenomena gnoseology is mostly the subject of attention of domestic scholars.