Natural law and positive law approaches: overcoming the contradictions between them

Introduction: the article is aimed at making sense of contradictions between the theories of positive and natural law, and, in particular, at assessing the possibility of overcoming these contradictions and combining the elements of natural law and positive legal approaches in the framework of one theoretical model. Literature Review: the author studied works of T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos, S. Tolmin, and theoretical achievements of V.M. Shafirov and A.V. Novikov. Materials and Methods: the author used general scientific methods of analysis, comparison, abstraction and deduction. Also, as part of the analysis of the relationship between the theories of positive and natural law, an evolutionist approach in epistemology was used, which was developed by S. Tulmin. Results: within the framework of the study, the connection between natural-legal and positive-legal theories was analyzed. It indicated the main question in the resolution of which there was a contradiction between them. The logical aspect of subordination of certain elements of natural-legal and positive-legal theories to their initial prerequisites was evaluated. Discussion and Conclusions: it is proved that certain elements of natural-legal and positive-legal approaches can be jointly used both in the framework of scientific theory and in practice.