The question about what the scientific methodology is, is a complicated question not only for the civilians but also for the methodologists of the science, for the philosophers and the theorists of the law. But the general scientific complexity of the problem should not lead to avoiding it in the specific sciences.
At present, the situation is created in the sphere of the civil law researches, when the methodology, in a manner of speaking, “takes a revenge” over the civil science: the full ignoring of the methodological aspects of the scientific research, the lack of understanding of the essence and the meaning of the methodology, the failure to use the system of the general and the specific scientific cognition methods leads to the diluting the very core of the science, to the intensive multiplication of the scientific “plankton”, to the research of the civil “chimeras” instead of the really existing problems. N.A. Vlasenko rightly characterized the state of the modern scientific thought as the “circulation of the muddy water”21. It is a pity this characteristic is applicable to many scientific researches being performed.
The methodology of the science is traditionally understood as a complex of the scientific cognition methods. Nevertheless, as known, the entire is always bigger than a simple set of the components: a kit for making a plane – is not yet a plane itself.
The cognition methods separately are a specific part of the civil methodology, and the researcher should be familiar with each of them.
To begin with, the the excellence of a legal theorist is defined by his understanding of the special, specific (general legal) methods of cognition and his ability to use them. For example, the usage of the historical legal method – is not the interpretation of the contents of the normative acts, that regulated in the past the researched phenomenon, and not the retrospective of the scientists’ opinions about it. Similarly, the use of the comparative legal method is not the re-writing the articles, covering the researched phenomenon, from the legislations of the foreign countries. Such application of the mentioned research method is very often met in the civil scientific works.
It is a pity that the civil scientists seldom use the methods of the nonjuridical sciences (economy, sociology, cultural studies, psychology, mathematics), which significantly enlarge the opportunities of the research. An especially promising and in some researches – a necessary method is the economic analysis and the sociological analysis of the civil law concerning how the civil legal phenomenon under study influences the economics and the society and vice versa. For example, if the recently implemented institution of the personal bankruptcy is needed in the specific economic relations, if it has led to the expected economical result, i.e. the significant reduction of debt to the creditors? Using the sociological methods, one can discover how the addressees of this institution treat it: if the risk of bankruptcy is a real factor inducing to pay the debt, or if it, on the contrary, is a happy opportunity to get rid of the creditors’ claims? In the latter case, the eficiency of the civil legal regulation of the personal bankruptcy will be extremely low, in the worst case scenario – the regulation will be not needed, and this cannot be ignored by the researcher.
It is quite often that the civil works include the innovative proposals that require considerable financial resources which are totally not taken into attention by the researchers. For example, the thesis researches propose to develop the mechanisms of compensating the civil damage for the deceived participants of the co-funded construction project, for the crime victims and the victims of other offences, for consumers, for the investors of the bankrupt financial organizations, for the authors of illegally used creative works, and other persons at the expense of the national budget. The economic analysis22 of such statements about the novelty of the research is a mandatory condition for their verification.
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.
