Old wine and new wineskins? L. I. Petrażycki and dynamic understanding of law

Abstract

In the following article the author tries to research the relations between L. Petrażycki’s psychological theory of law and modern concepts of the dynamic understanding of law in the former Soviet Union. The core of the research is the hypothesis that there is a latent inheritance between L. Petrażycki’s theory and some studies of the contemporary Russian-speaking legal philosophers at the level of the legal-philosophical issues and certain ideas. To establish these facts, the author considers the specific character of the dynamic understanding of law, such as dereification of law, overcoming the Being-Due dichotomy, relativity of law, its focus on the human dimension, as well as the narrative of the methodology. Moreover, the dynamical-discrete legal ontology also constitutes the core of the dynamic understanding of law. According to it, the law does not exist in a certain ideal dimension, but is rather reproduced within the persons’ being with others. Then, the author researches some specific notions of the psychological theory of law, for example, doubts in the absolute legal Being, focus on the emotional projectivity of rights and duties, and the hidden transition to the discrete forms of law. The author’s conclusion is that the psychological theory of law is quite similar to some ideas of the dynamic understanding of law which is based on their belonging to the common legal tradition. 

Keywords:

psychological theory of law, dynamic understanding of law, dynamic-discrete ontology of law, legal emotions, legal tradition