Legal Reflection during the Crisis of the New European Worldview Paradigm: Problem Statement

This article touches upon the worldview basis of European identity in legal area. So it explores the issue of relationship between Western legal tradition and new European culture in the totality of it’s multiform manifestations. Identification of this relationship gives us an opportunity to understand the character and reasons of the Western Legal Tradition crisis phenomena. It emphasizes the indissoluble connection between those phenomena and the global cultural processes, mainly the collapse of the former world view paradigm and formation of a new value system. The article also introduces a brief review of the development milestones of the 19th century philosophy, which were indicative of the start of revision of the major premises of the new European world view and the corresponding picture of the world. It is stated that there is an interconnection between those cultural processes and the crisis phenomena in legal consciousness, which started to take effect in the period of study and are thus seen as one of the manifestations of a deeper crisis in the new European world view fundamentals themselves. Besides, the article represents a review of a series of the legal concepts established by Russian authors in the first half of the 20th century, with common interest in the problem of legal consciousness during the crisis of European legal tradition. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n3s5p7