Strength and Weakness of E. V. Bulygin’s Logical Positivism. Book Review: Anto nov M. V., Lisanyuk E. N., Tonkov E. N. (eds.). How Is Logic in Law Possible? St. Petersburg, Aleteia, 2021

Abstract

The review provides a detailed account of the collective study of the oeuvre of the Russian-Argentinian legal scholar Evgeny Viktorovich Bulygin, the results of which are reflected in the book “How Is Logic in Law Possible?” (M. V. Antonov, E. N. Lisanyuk, E. N. Tonkov (eds.). St. Petersburg: Aleteia, 2021). It is emphasized that the research participants succeeded in carrying out a comprehensive analysis of the merits and deficiencies of Bulygin’s logical positivism. Among the merits, most researchers consider the distinction between the rules of law and normative propositions, in virtue of which legal prescriptions came to lend themselves to logical analysis. The authors associate the weaknesses of logical positivism with its inability to justify normativity, as well as with the shortcomings of deductivism as a model of judicial argumentation.