Debatable Aspects of the Development of Legal Hermeneutics (Based on the Example of Modern French Legal Realism)

This article is devoted to the study of the specifics of one of the most controversial theories in modern philosophy of law – French legal neorealism, developed since the early 80s of the twentieth century. Interest in these views and their controversial nature is due to both a certain scientific novelty, a complex basis (represented, on the one hand, by a neopositivist and normative basis, and on the other, by the ideas of sociological jurisprudence), and a rather radical nature for the continental European philosophical and political-legal tradition, entailing ambiguous practical consequences. At the same time, we are talking about a system of ideas that are qualitatively different from the “classical” Anglo-American and Scandinavian versions of legal realism. Following M. Foucault, neorealists argue that a text acquires meaning only at the moment of interpretation, without which it does not carry any content; in the case of a legal text, it is normative. In other words, it is interpretation that determines the creation of a real, applicable, and effective legal norm. Considering the prerequisites for the formation of French legal neorealism, revealing its content and controversial aspects of the essence, and emphasizing the theoretical significance, the authors also sought to determine the place of the studied views within the general outline of the problems of modern hermeneutic discourse in law. Based on the results of the work, the authors conclude that, in the context of legal hermeneutics and generally under the conditions of modern legal relativism, neorealism is notable for its evidentiary justification of the impossibility of developing a universal “strategy” for interpreting and applying law. At the same time, the main line of modern development of neorealism is the development of the concept of “legal restrictions,” which most consistently limit the discretion of the interpreter and allow us to adjust a number of established provisions of philosophy and theory of law.