On Some Issues of Source Assessment in the History of Political and Legal Doctrines: Competition of Different Approaches

The paper is devoted to a little-studied problem, namely, source assessment in the history of political and legal doctrines from the perspective of the competition of different approaches. In this paper, sources refer to various forms of theoretical knowledge: views, doctrines, theories, concepts, ideas, schools, trends and approaches. In other words, we consider the types of sources in which thinkers of different eras and trends try to reflect the essence of state legal phenomena, primarily, the state and law, and other closely related institutions, such as power, property, democracy, the rule of law, etc. One of the main ideas of the paper is to justify the fact that the history of doctrines is primarily the evolution of the struggle between them. Moreover, the opposition of ideas is actually observed from the very beginning of political and legal thought. The problem of an objective assessment of the doctrines is highlighted, since there are many factors that prevent this. In this regard, we consider the time (chronological), methodological, ideological, political, scientific, ideological and other circumstances, including individual preferences. The assessment is based on the main form of theoretical political and legal knowledge, i.e. a doctrine and its structure. It is the structural elements of political doctrine that are evaluated by researchers of ideas, who themselves are not always free in their expert activities. This aspect is also reflected in the paper.

The author summarizes: since the history of ideas is a history of struggle, competition in their evaluation is inevitable. It is possible to adhere to various philosophical views, but it is impossible to neglect the scientific validity of the teaching that is subject to evaluation. At the same time, this problem does not concern the doctrines that are being evaluated, but the personality of the evaluator of the doctrines, sometimes formed by the greatest thinkers.

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