Contextual definitions and their applicability in the language of law

Contextual definitions within the framework of modern logics and philosophy of science are widely used and explained. Moreover, they have acquired an independent epistemological meaning, along with other types of definitions. However, in the humanities, their applicability has been questioned and challenged many times. The author, on the contrary, substantiates the premise that the effectiveness of contextual definitions, in particular in the legal language, is not lower, and sometimes even much higher than the effectiveness of generic definitions. In a contemporary, especially western legal science, Bentham’s and Harts’s points of view that the contextual definition is opposed to the genetic definition continues to dominate, and the latter in relation to the analysis of legal concepts is recognized as ineffective and unproductive. The author is of the opinion that these two types of definitions may well coexist and in some sense complement each other, taking into account different areas of their applicability. The main and most characteristic area of application of contextual definitions, according to the author, are the constitutional rules of law. Constitutional rules of law in this approach are considered as contextual definitions of the basic concepts by which other rules of law in the legal system are formulated. Contextual definitions are very useful when we need to clarify the very general concepts and terms that can be found, for example, in the text of the Constitution. As a result, the defined terms become semantically meaningful, and their use in the legal language becomes syntactically consistent.