HERMENEUTICS AND ITS POTENTIAL FOR CRIMINAL LAW SCIENCE

The article deals with the ideas of hermeneutics formed at the present stage in the legal science. From the point of view of the history of the formation of this trend revealed shortcomings in the existing scientific judgments about the phenomena of interpretation and understanding, as well as the degree of development of hermeneutics as of the middle ages, when the notion of hermeneutics as a science of interpretation or explanation of the meaning of words according to certain rules. Through the recess in the legacy of the founders of hermeneutics - V. Humboldt, F. Schleiermacher, F. Schlegel, W. Dilthey, G. Shpet and others - demonstrated her considerable and have not yet uncovered the potential for criminal law. The specific conceptual development of thinkers, the adaptation of which will significantly transform the idea of the criminal law, to replace quantitative with qualitative methods of measuring the harm caused by the crime, to minimize the value of arbitrary discretion in legislative and law enforcement practices, to provide an understanding of the individual's individual act on the basis of the totality of "life circumstances" of the author of the criminal law.