The purpose of this work is a general description of current trends in the research methodology of the history of political and legal ideas. The starting point is the thesis about dialogical nature of such research and openness of intellectual heritage of the past to rethinking in a new cultural situation. It is noted that the ideas are not to be regarded as the timeless substances, which keep their meaning unchanged. The consequence of such understanding of ideas is anachronism in relation to philosophical views of the past. To avoid such mistakes, political and legal ideas and concepts should be considered, firstly, within the author's discourse, and secondly, in the context of culture and worldview of the epoch to which the author of the text belonged. Some problems of applying methods of structuralism, hermeneutics, semiotics in historical studies of political and legal discourses are discussed.
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