Methodology of law reform research: an attempt to describe the epistemological mosaic

The article defines and substantiates the methodological tools for understanding law reform. The author analyses contemporary views on the content, structure and peculiarities of the methodology of science, the methodology of jurisprudence (law/legal science), and the methodology of law cognition. It has been established that the methodology of modern jurisprudence is a complex sociocultural phenomenon, which clearly reflects the specificity of the gnoseological discourse of law life, its components and levels. In particular, the methodology of law reform research is outlined as a conceptual presentation of the idea, purpose, vector, content and components of the methodological toolkit, which ensures the most adequate, objective and systematic information about the essential properties of law reform. It is argued that the cognitive arsenal necessary for a comprehensive study of the nature of law reform is diverse in nature and is a multi-level, mosaic and integrative system of adapted methodological knowledge. To ensure the reliability and validity of the results of the study of the essence of law reform, the following have been identified and characterised worldview, philosophical, scientific, sociological and theoretical foundations; principles of scientific knowledge (methodological principles); methodological (conceptual, scientific) approaches; general methods of thinking, philosophical, general scientific, specific scientific (private scientific) methods. This approach to describing the architecture of the methodology for researching law reform does not deny the relevance, possibility and necessity of other variants of its structure, but rather provides for their enrichment and complementarity, integrity of perception, since the construction of various classifications or the isolation of distinct components of the methodology of a particular scientific study is not an end in itself, but are determined by the need to establish interrelations between its components and levels, which is necessary for the correct choice of the arsenal of methodological tools of general theoretical research in accordance with the internal regularity of law reform and the peculiarities of scientific knowledge on this issue.