The Distinction Between Pure Legal Concepts, Singular Social Acts, and Temporal Legal Formations in Adolf Reinach's A priori Legal Study

Abstract

Introduction. The article examines two fundamental interconnections in Adolf Reinach's a priori theory of law, which are crucial for the correct interpretation of his phenomenological project. The main problem lies in the absence of methodological explanations in Reinach's legal work, which complicates the reproduction of his phenomenological approach outside the context of positive law. The focus is, firstly, on the correlation between fundamental legal concepts and a priori laws rooted in the essence of these concepts, and, secondly, on the logical equivalence between individual social acts and the corresponding legal formations as temporal objects.Methodology and materials. Aiming to reconstruct (using D. I. Lukovskaya's interpretation method), the study is based on a conceptual-comparative analysis of Reinach's A Priori Foundations of Civil Law and Husserl's Logical Investigations.Results and discussion. It is revealed that a priori laws are rooted in pure legal concepts, possessing timeless significance, while individual social acts and legal formations exist in time. A logical equivalence is established between the effectiveness of an individual social act and the existence of the corresponding temporal formation.Conclusions. By comparing the predications of the categories “legal concept”, “a priori law which rooted in the essence of a legal concept”, “social act”, and “legal entity”, the author concludes that Reinach consistently uses these concepts in his legal study in accordance with the phenomenological methodology of Husserl's Logical Investigations, despite the project of a priori legal theory having features of realistic phenomenology.