The idea of phronesis in hermeneutical philosophy of law

Introduction: the article is devoted to the reactualization of the Aristotelian ideas of phronesis in hermeneutic philosophy to clarify the nature of jurisprudence as an experience of law. Results: in the light of the typology of experience and knowledge forms proposed by Aristotle (episteme, techne, phronesis) the question of whether jurisprudence is a science in the strong sense of the word, or just a technology, gets a new interpretation. The problem is placed in a broad historical and philosophical context. In particular, the idea of phenomenological hermeneutics (Husserl, M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer) as an antimetaphysical project aimed at the crit icism of natural scientific rationality and the rehabilitation of phronesis experience of understanding is clarified. However, the experience of law is conceived as a paradigmatical example of phronesis, which, in contrast to the experience of art (techne) and the experience of science (episteme), suggests rather than removing the existing legal meanings from the authoritative sources for their subsequent application to a given situation, and the involuntary creation of these meanings, but their reproduction in the dialogue with tradition, whose part we are. So there reveals the rhetorical nature of all the reasoning about law as a conversation, where participants strive not to defend their position not to accept the position of the interlocutor, but to understand the essence of the case in question. Conclusions: in this sense, hermeneutical philosophy of law is an alternative to both dogmatism and relativism in jurisprudence, putting in place of the metaphysical beliefs about the existence of independent moral truths the experience of our own historicity.