Social contextuality of law: social challenges and legal consequences

This article is devoted to the transformations of the subject of legal science in the conditions of postmodern. The latter is characterized as a current period when the concepts of the foundations of the world order are radically changed. The transition to a non-classical rationality with it’s basic principles of variability, decentration, contextuality is the expression of it in the socio-humanitarian field. The last of those principles is explored more thoroughly. The recognition of contextuality of the law accents its social conditionality, what renders impossible the isolated studying of a legal reality. The article considers the different types of contexts, to which it is accepted to address within the continental and Anglo-American traditions of legal researches, their importance for the law studying are shown. The special attention is paid to social challenges which legal regulation and legal science face in the conditions of postmodern, such as «death of a legal entity» (the radical change of position and the self-consciousness of person in the postmodern epoch), mediatization of law and influence of mass culture on it