On the Question of the Peculiarities of Using an Interdisciplinary Approach in Modern Scientific Research in the Field of Law

Osipov Mikhail Yur'evich ORCID: 0000-0002-6982-3668 PhD in Law Senior Scientific Associate, International Police Academy of All-Russian Police Association 300026, Russia, Tul'skaya oblast', g. Tula, ul. Ryazanskaya, 1 osipov11789@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

One of the urgent problems facing modern social sciences is that of using an interdisciplinary approach in modern scientific research. Various studies have been devoted to this, the results of which have been reflected in numerous scientific articles. However, researchers do not clearly determine the essence of using an interdisciplinary approach in modern scientific research in the legal sciences field.

Most of all, the necessity of using an interdisciplinary approach is stated. For example, in the work of A.V. Dolzhnikov: "The constitutional principle of proportionality: an interdisciplinary approach," the necessity of using an interdisciplinary approach in legal research is stated, but this is explained by the fact that "an interdisciplinary approach allows you to go beyond purely formal legal methodology and see new facets" of a phenomenon, in this case, "proportionality in law" ^{[1, p. 6]}. At the same time, the author considers the concept of "proportionality" from philosophical, psychological, and ethical points of view ^{[1, p. 9–13]}, as well as from the point of view of economics, sociology, linguistics, and political science ^{[1, p. 14–22]}. But what are the results of the study, and what conclusions did the author come to during its implementation? It turns out that "as the results of the analysis, it is necessary to emphasize the relationship of certain aspects of the interdisciplinary passage in terms of the application of the constitutional principle of proportionality" ^{[1, p.22]}. At the same time, in his opinion, "the conflict of the sociological and economic aspects of the idea of proportionality requires the search for an optimal solution. When the state assumes exorbitant social obligations, the value of economic development is lost sight of" ^{[1, p. 22]}. In the conclusion of this article, the author writes: "The appeal to the interdisciplinary aspects of the constitutional principle of proportionality does not negate the value of dogmatic jurisprudence. Instead, due to the continuing shortage of such studies in Russian constitutionalism, interdisciplinary and formal legal approaches should be balanced here" ^{[1, p.22]}. However, the question arises as the researcher writes about the constitutional principle of proportionality in an interdisciplinary approach. Then, in theory, the author should have defined the constitutional principle of proportionality in an interdisciplinary approach, then identified its various aspects, shown their interaction with each other, and also concluded how these phenomena relate to each other. However, the article's author, unfortunately, only showed various aspects of this phenomenon without revealing the specifics of their interaction with each other and did not show how "interdisciplinary and formal legal approaches should be balanced here" ^{[1, p.22]}. The reason for this kind of "deplorable situation" is the misunderstanding by some researchers of the essence of the interdisciplinary approach in the field of legal sciences and the features of its use.

Literature review

It should be noted that the term "interdisciplinary approach" has become quite well spread in Western science ^[2]. At the same time, this kind of approach had become widespread in Western science since the time of Heidegger, when he raised the question that "It is not enough to have tanks, planes, and communication equipment; it is not enough to have people capable of servicing such things; it is not enough even to master technology, as if it is something indifferent, otherworldly in itself benefit and harm, construction, and destruction, applicable by anyone and for any purpose. Humanity is required, which is at its very core commensurate with the unique essence of the New European technology and its metaphysical truth, that is, which gives the essence of technology to completely master itself in order to direct and use all individual processes and possibilities so directly" ^{[2, p.3] [3, p.85]}. Currently, Western science also pays considerable attention to various aspects of interdisciplinary research. So in 2014, the book Interdisciplinary Studies (Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-being Research) was published by Springer Publishing House ^[4]. A number of scientific articles devoted to interdisciplinary research (abbreviated as M-research) have also been published in this publishing house ^{[5] [6]}

The question arises, what is M–research, and to what extent do they make a profound contribution to the development of legal sciences? As noted in the literature, "The result of m-research, as a rule, goes beyond what can be obtained by working within a certain discipline. In this case, the examination should also be an interdisciplinary synthesis" [2. p.11]. However, the question arises how such a synthesis is possible and how productive and effective such research will be.

This article is devoted to the search for an answer to this question.

Materials and methods

To achieve the purpose of the study, the author considers it necessary to analyze the features of the use of an interdisciplinary approach in modern scientific research in the field of legal sciences to identify patterns of the use of an interdisciplinary approach in the field of legal sciences and, based on the analysis of these patterns, suggest ways to most effectively use an interdisciplinary approach in modern scientific research in the field of legal sciences.

As the author carries out his scientific research in the field of jurisprudence, he will consider the features of using an interdisciplinary approach in the example of legal sciences.

Thus, one of the urgent problems facing legal science is the problem of understanding the phenomenon of law. The relevance of this problem is because discussions about the place and role of law in the life of society have now intensified, as well as the problem of finding philosophical foundations for building the foundations of legal science in the postmodern era. It should be noted that there is quite a lot of work on this issue. At the same time, it becomes clear that the problem of understanding the law is interdisciplinary, as legal phenomena can be studied by a variety of sciences. At the same time, in legal science, there is a need to consider the basic concepts of understanding law for the construction of modern legal sciences. This necessity is due to the following circumstances. According to modern researchers in the humanities, three aspects of research can be distinguished: the substantial (ontological) aspect, within which the question of the essence and nature of a phenomenon that is the object of research is considered; and the functional aspect, that is, how a particular phenomenon functions, what is its role in the system of interacting and interrelated the discursive aspect (how this or that phenomenon is reflected in the ways of communication and understanding of the social world) ^{[7, p.19]} [8. p. 19–20]. Currently, there are many approaches to understanding the law and legal reality ^{[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]}

If we summarize the various approaches to understanding the law, then each of these approaches has a certain methodological potential, which should be discovered in the course of a particular study ^[19]. At the same time, it seems necessary to use an interdisciplinary approach to reveal a certain methodological potential of a particular concept of understanding law.

Let's show this with a concrete example. To understand the communicative concept of law and identify its strengths and weaknesses, one must understand the conceptual series that an author uses. In other words, speaking in modern information language, it is necessary to understand the namespace of a particular concept of understanding the law. For example, what is communication that the author of the communicative concept of law considers the basis of law ^[17], and how does this term relate to the concept of "social communication" used in psychological, social, and linguistic sciences? Are these concepts identical to each other or not identical? Are they valid concepts behind which there is a certain legal reality, or are they metaphorical concepts describing legal reality in the language of metaphors? This requires interdisciplinary research. At the same time, using an interdisciplinary approach to the problem of understanding the law makes it possible to identify both the advantages and disadvantages of a particular concept of understanding it. Thus, the communicative and hermeneutic concept of understanding the law is not able to explain how the legal text differs from other social texts, how the hierarchy of legal norms, understood as socio-cultural texts, is built, how the legal norms operate in time, space, and a circle of people, how to solve legal issues from the standpoint of the communicative concept of law the problems facing society, including such a practical task as using the wall of someone else's house as a screen for displaying advertising images without the consent of the owner of the house ^[20] Also, the communicative concept of law does not allow answering the question, is a child or a foreigner who does not speak the language in which the proceedings are conducted deprived of rights? Obviously not. In addition, in our opinion, the law cannot be reduced only to communication as legal relations—one of the central elements of the mechanism for the implementation of the law has a regulatory, not a communicative nature—represents a legal relationship between the subjects of law, expressed in the form of mutual (corresponding) rights and obligations of participants in this relationship.

The disadvantage of the hermeneutic concept of understanding law ^[21], in our opinion, is that it is not defined by what is meant by the best understanding of the law ^[22]. It is obvious that if we turn to the analysis of legal reality, we will see that there are a number of presumptions in the law concerning the interpretation of legal norms: the presumption of authentic interpretation, according to which the best interpretation is the interpretation given by the body that adopted this legal norm, the presumption of the priority of normative (abstract) interpretation, according to which the best interpretation after the authentic one is the interpretation given by the body officially authorized for such interpretation, the presumption of the casual interpretation of the norms of law, according to which the best interpretation after the authentic and normative interpretation is the casual interpretation, given by the courts of higher instances. In addition, ignoring the legal reality and the fact that the law regulates public relations, a situation may arise where a text that is not directly related to the law can be taken as legal, which leads to the formulation of meaningless tasks such as determining the rights and obligations or legal status of Little Red Riding Hood, Gray Wolf, Winnie the Pooh and other fairytale characters ^[23]. The situation is similar to the synergetic and postmodern concepts of understanding the law ^{[9] [16]}. Thus, according to the supporters of postmodernism, the concept of truth and error does not apply to the law and legal theories, and, consequently, the law as such is an unknowable phenomenon from the standpoint of one or another theory of law ^[9]. According to I. L. Chestnov, "The law is a social phenomenon, a moment, a side of society, a slice or layer of social relationships. It can be isolated from other social phenomena (economics, politics, etc.) only analytically and is not a self-sufficient phenomenon, a closed system functioning according to its own laws. Its purpose is manifested in the role it plays in society" ^[9]. In later works, he notes, "The versatility of law, which includes a person socialized in the appropriate legal culture—the bearer of the status of the subject of law, his actions (in the broad sense of the word—activities manifested externally) and symbolic forms in which the person himself, his actions, things of the material world, with which a person operates with, and he himself (his social status [24.P.10]." However, this kind of description is suitable not only for law but also for other social phenomena. Any social phenomenon is multifaceted. A person is always a carrier of a certain social status, and comprehending a person's activity and operations in relation to others always occurs in a symbolic form. Furthermore, he believes that "the law is objective not only because it assumes formal consolidation, but also because it exists in mass practices—interactions of people in legally significant situations" [24. C.10]. In addition, people's behavior in legally significant situations, including mass circumstances, can be different. Who decides whether this behavior is legal or illegal? In a later work, he notes that this is decided by the authorities as "the degree of usefulness or harmfulness of a particular social phenomenon is determined by the authorities—the elite and the reference group, or more precisely, in the struggle of elites and reference groups" [24. p.18–19] This kind of approach is very close to legal positivism, according to which the right comes from the state. However, in such a situation, the question arises whether the government is limited in its ideas about what is right and what is wrong, what is lawful and what is illegal, by any restrictions, or it is not limited by anything. If it is not limited by anything, then it turns out that the right is nothing but an institutionalized arbitrariness. But then the question arises, on what legal basis was the trial of Nazi criminals carried out, and why was the regime in Germany in the era of National Socialism recognized as criminal if the authorities determine what is right and what is wrong, what is lawful and what is illegal.

The answer to this question is quite obvious. Nazism was really a criminal regime because it encroached on the fundamental legal values that have been developed by humankind throughout its history: freedom of man and other subjects of law, equality of all subjects of law before the law, justice (truth), and a number of others. These values are reflected in the current law in its legal norms. Secondly, it is not the symbolic form, not the mass behavior of people, and not the government, that ultimately determines the structure of the current law, but the features of public relations that are regulated by legal norms. The question arises, what exactly determines the specifics of the regulation of public relations by law? In our opinion, the specifics of the regulation of public relations by the norms of law are determined by the specifics of public relations included in the subject of legal regulation. Firstly, the general significance of public relations, that is, the independence of their content from the personal characteristics of the subjects of these relations, makes it possible to regulate them with the help of the norms of the law as it is the law that regulates public relations in such a way that the content of this regulation does not depend on the personal characteristics of the subjects of the relations regulated by it. The volitional nature of these relations presupposes the regulation of these relations with the help of such means of regulation as permission, obligation, and prohibition, through which the subjective rights and obligations of the participants in these relations are determined, as well as their grounds for their occurrence and termination. The objects of these relations exist in objective reality regardless of the current law and the subjects. At the same time, the identification of a person by one or another attribute is performed by society, the state only records the decisions taken by one or another society, but based on a person’s nature, from the point of view of religion and ethnicity, a person identifies himself, in accordance with the legal norms enshrined in the Constitution, the identification of a person from the point of view of "literacy health and mental normality is carried out by a person’s social environment. The only identification function that the State performs is identifying the behavior of the subjects of law in terms of their legality/illegality, which is carried out in accordance with legal norms. Therefore, it is in the legal norms that, first of all, it should be determined which behavior is lawful and which is illegal and why.

I. L. Chestnov’s concept of defining a person’s character as a subject of law is also interesting. In his opinion, "the subject of law should be interpreted not just as a subject of legal relations, but much more broadly as the center of the legal system, its creator and permanent figure" [24.P. 18-19]. However, with this view of the problem of legal subjects, the question arises, which of us can be considered the center of the legal system, its creator and permanent figure? It is quite difficult to answer this question because it is unclear what is meant by the word person. If we mean a Person as a representative of a certain biological species, a Person as a collective image, then everything is quite obvious. As "the law and the legal system are artificial formations," they cannot be created by anyone other than a person. If some other person is meant, then who is that? To answer these questions, it is necessary to conduct interdisciplinary research, including research on the understanding of law by the author of a particular concept that claims to be a new direction in legal science. In relation to other social phenomena, the situation is similar.

For example, can such a social phenomenon as education be comprehended outside of social communication? Of course not, as evidenced by research in the field of education ^{[25] [26]}. Moreover, as the authors of the article rightly point out, "Socialization involves the implementation of the human learning process in a certain place and time" [26. C. 5401]. Is education "constituted by only one text, and not by the whole set of tests offered for students to study" ^[27]? Similarly, science is formed based on the totality of texts prepared by various scientists. Therefore, we can say that the communicative concept of studying certain social phenomena is an interdisciplinary approach, which, however, describes not only legal but also other social phenomena ^{[28] [29] [30] [31]}. The situation is similar to other concepts. Thus, any social phenomenon can be viewed from the perspective of not only communicative but also historical, anthropological, and synergetic approaches ^{[32] [33]}.

Conclusion

We can come to the following conclusions based on all of the above.

Interdisciplinary research in the legal sciences is necessary and important because it helps identify common patterns of formation, development, and functioning of social phenomena in general. In other words, studying the inherent patterns in all social phenomena, regardless of their nature, is the value of interdisciplinary research ^{[34, p. 40–41]}. However, interdisciplinary research, in our opinion, cannot be used when it is necessary to investigate the specific properties of a particular social phenomenon. In our opinion, interdisciplinary research in the legal sciences represents a so-called philosophical level of research ^[35]. However, studies of the philosophical level in the legal sciences allow us to establish the general patterns of formation, development, and functioning of various social phenomena ^{[36, p. 280]}, the implementation of which is impossible without the use of an interdisciplinary approach. It does not allow us to establish specific patterns of formation, development, and functioning of these social phenomena, which requires a disciplinary approach in certain studies ^{[37, C.294–296] [38]}, as the interdisciplinary approach in research in the field of legal sciences is focused primarily on clarifying those common properties inherent in all social phenomena. The disciplinary approach focuses on clarifying specific properties inherent only in some social phenomena. Therefore, disciplinary research plays the role of industry research in the legal sciences. At the same time, the interdisciplinary and disciplinary approaches are correlated in the legal sciences as studies of the general (interdisciplinary approach), special and separate (disciplinary approach). In addition, it seems very important to pay attention to the following circumstances when conducting both interdisciplinary and disciplinary research. When studying certain social phenomena, it is very important to establish how this or that legal phenomenon manifests itself in regulating certain social relations and the essential signs of this phenomenon. Those properties manifest themselves in the most stable way in the regulation of this social relation (class of relations). This makes it possible to form so-called "conceptual series," that is, groups of concepts that reflect certain legal phenomena that exhibit the same properties that will act as essential features of this concept. The use of the methodology of conceptual series will make it possible to establish the limitations of a particular theory, develop constructive criticism, identify the strengths and weaknesses of a particular theory or concept, and prevent the so-called "enmity" of different law schools, which will undoubtedly contribute to the progress of legal sciences.

In addition, it seems very important to teach students to use the tools of interdisciplinary and disciplinary approaches to study various aspects of social phenomena that are the objects of research in various master's degrees in legal sciences. It seems that such an idea among master's students can be formed in the course History and Methodology of Science, within which one or two topics can be identified on the correlation of interdisciplinary and disciplinary approaches in the study of various social phenomena, including legal phenomena.

The practical value of this study is seen in the fact that the material proposed in the article can be used as a theoretical and methodological basis for the effective implementation of scientific research in the field of legal sciences, including in the study of educational problems.