Principles of legal cognition: historical and logical aspects

The paper deals with the issues relating to the meaning and functions of the principles of research in legal cognition. The author characterizes different forms of scientific legal cognition. Special attention is given to the consideration of historical and legal research. The author shows that there are important universal principles of cognition in historical and legal research: a principle of objectiveness and a principle of historicism. In the paper the role of logical principles in the structure of legal cognition methodology within the framework of methodological studies in law is discussed. The author argues that there are main logical principles (law of logic), which are used in the scientific legal cognition: law of identity, law of contradiction, law of excluded middle, principle of sufficient reason. It is stated in the paper that main principles of logic, which were elaborated in classical antique philosophy by Aristotle, can be considered as logical reasons of legal cognition and as universal philosophical reasons of the rational scientific legal research. Тhe author reveals the functions of main logical principles in research of criminal law and criminal proceeding. The author makes a conclusion that universal principles of cognition applied in historical and legal research and main principles of logic realize epistemological and methodological functions in legal cognition.