This article analyzes conceptual representations of the prominent foreign philosophers of law as a reality of social existence and a form of collective consciousness, which are traditionally attributed to philosophy and sociology of law. The goal of this research consists in the following: 1) assess the attitude of analytical jurisprudence towards theoretical integration of various aspects of law by analogy with the sociology of law; 2) follow the correlation between philosophical and sociological approaches towards interpretation of socio-legal meanings of modernity; 3) analyze the dependence of development of the philosophy of law, which was often searching for explanations in distinct underlying logic inherent to practice of law, on the sociology of law, which tends to comprehend law in relation to various aspects of organization of social life (including professional legal and administrative practice). The novelty of this of this work is defined by the following aspects. The article makes an attempt of comprehensive analyze of various approaches and theories, as well as assesses feasibility of examination of questions of social and legal nature in the context of sociology of law. Attention is given to the experience of Western law, which in the author’s opinion virtually implies national state law, i.e. what British philosopher, the founder of legal positivism John Austin, called independent political societies. The article reveals the question of critical potential of sociology of law, which criticized the assumption that nature of the social is not a problem for legal theory
Conceptual pluralism in foreign philosophy and sociology of law: history and modernity
