Методологические проблемы цивилистических исследований. Сборник научных статей. Ежегодник. Выпуск 2. 2017

In some of the civil researches it will be relevant to use the methodological toolbox of the cultural and psychological sciences allowing to account for the corresponding special features of the society. For example, when using exceptionally the legal methodology, the juridical construction of the relations between the borrower and the microfinance organizations look practically “trouble-free”: the organization gives the citizen a definite amount of money for his immediate needs, although at high interest rates but with no deposit. The problems of this construction are revealed when this construction is transferred to the society with the known cultural and psychological features. The borrowers are usually people not only with low income but also having low general and legal culture, with low capacity for the legal reflection and self-regulation. They inadequately evaluate their possibilities, with all the resulting civil consequences and, it is a pity, with harsh criminal consequences. The ignoring of this factors devaluates the civil legal construction of “microloans” and leads to the justified blaming the lawyers for their failure to “study the life of the society and the state, the functioning of the law within the framework of their actual purpose in the life of people and the society”23.

Surely, none of the scientific researches can be made with no general scientific methods of cognition (analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction comparison, analogy etc.). Although, in opinion of B.I. Puginskiy, the mentioned means “are not the methods of getting the scientific knowledge but are the general logical rules of performing the intellectual operations”24, their research potential should not be underestimated. These means provide for a formal rightness of the statements, but not always for their verity of course.

In general, the relevant and effective application of the scientific cognition methods supposes the deep understanding of their nature, purpose, functions, rules and cases of use by the researcher.

In our opinion, the authors of the civil works, especially the authors of the theses, should describe the chosen methodology of the research at the level of the paragraph, chapter, section. The standard list of the research methods being repeated in every thesis, is not suficient for explaining the chosen methodology and the methods of cognition. It is necessary to describe distinctly and in detail, what method was used, the reason and the purpose for choosing it to get a definite scientific result.

However, the methodology of the science, including the civil science, has a common part, because the methodology as a specific organization of the scientific activity is in charge not only for the use of the necessary means and procedures of the scientific cognition but also for the correct definition of the object and the subject of the research, for its tasks and phases, for its results (scientific novelty)25.

The common part of the civil methodology also includes the question of the correspondence between the “theory of law” and the “civil law” sciences, resulting from the general question of correspondence between the science theory and methodology. The scientific theory performs all the methodological functions in all the sciences26. The general theory, by forming “ the systematic methodology mindset for the forthcoming juridical researches”27, performs this function for the civil science. This means that the theory of law shows the way of gaining an insight into the civil phenomenon. The notions uncovered by the theory of law, should get the further concreteness in sectoral sciences through revealing their sectoral features. And, vice versa, the research of the specific civil phenomenon should be held with a wide use of the legal phenomena cognition theoretical tools developed by the juridical science: “The level of the theory of law as the methodology is a fundamental science about the law where the key law concepts and principles are being developed to be used by specific juridical sciences”28. This provides for a well-known conceptual and category harmony of the legal science as a whole.

Nevertheless, in modern civil researches we often see an extremely disrespectful attitude towards the existing theoretical legal results. The results of the civil researches, for example about the civil legal relations, about the civil legal juridical facts, about the civil legal liability, civil legal protection of the rights, civil rights and duties, are so “unique” and far from the theoretical legal concepts of these legal phenomena, that they cause only reasonable negative reaction of the legal theorists – from the deep bewilderment to the explainable indignation. Such a situation is a result either of the misunderstanding of the meaning of the theory of law for the sectoral sciences or of the general lack of knowledge on the contents, the structure and the essence of the scientific methodology itself.