The thesis defines and reveals the role of the legal mentality of the Ukrainian ethnos in the state-building processes in the domestic territories. At the beginning of the dissertation research its categorical apparatus is determined, the essence of such concepts as "mentality", "mentality", "culture", "social consciousness", "ethnos", "social", "state creation", etc. are distinguished. Proceeding from this, it is reasonable to conclude that they all relate in one way or another to such a social and philosophical phenomenon as legal mentality. In defining it, the dissertation asserts that legal mentality is a set of stable structures of the deep level of collective and individual consciousness and subconscious, forming aspirations, inclinations, orientations, behavioral automatisms of people in the field of legal thinking and legally significant activity, generally recognized ethical and moral values of a particular ethnos, social legal psychology in its everyday manifestation.
Analyzing the structure of legal mentality as a socio-philosophical phenomenon, the author distinguishes in it the psycho-energetic (field), archetypal (images) and logical (concept) levels. At the same time, in his view, the basic understanding of the essence of political and legal automatisms of Ukrainians is a figurative level.
The methodological apparatus of this study is based on an existential-anthropological approach, the basis of which is intersubjectivity. Since existential philosophy and philosophical anthropology at its intersection place human beings in the center of attention, this approach has allowed to better understand the essence of the legal mentality of Ukrainians, contemplating it through the prism of their history and present, culture and everyday life, customs and traditions. In addition, this methodological approach allows us to realize that a person, his spiritual world, in particular, and the legal mentality, are not unchanged, but are undergoing various transformations under the influence of numerous factors. The actor emphasizes that the change of human generations and historical epochs inevitably leads to the modification of the human worldview, the vector of social development, the nature of activity. However, each ethnic group as a set of individuals - human beings preserves a number of inherent features only to him, passing them genetically from distant ancestors to modern descendants.
It is argued that constructive behavioral automatisms of the national mentality in the state discourse include: respect for labor and the right of private property; high authority of family, territorial community, mother-woman; the humanity of the criminal system; At the same time, destructive behavioral arrangements (legal nihilism, the idea of state and communal property as a "no man", lack of respect for the state of its organs, propensity to offenses and the heroization of criminal life, extremely deep rooting of corruption) require correction by introducing social legal ideology and an effective system of political and legal education of youth.
The expediency of developing ideas about Truth-Justice, Will-Freedom, Brotherhood-Equality of social ideology of national state-building, which in the long run will contribute to overcoming of counterproductive settings of domestic political and legal mentality, is substantiated.
Understanding the prospects of the participation of domestic society in globalization and European integration processes in the mental-legal discourse made it possible to establish: the European character of the domestic legal mentality, the specificity of which is related to the "borderline" situation of Ukrainian ethnic lands between Europe and Asia; the constructive impact on it of the European socio-cultural and civilizational space, which is an additional factor in overcoming the "Soviet mentality", legal nihilism, negative attitude to state and communal property, corruption and theft; a small probability of a radical change in its basic attitudes, basic legal ideas in the near future; the necessity of preservation under the influence of globalization and eurointegration influences of its own mentally-legal identity, national traditions in the field of legal thinking.
It is proved that the reception by the domestic society of European political and legal values in the future will become an important factor for constructive transformations in the state-building context. The institutionalization and deep rooting in the national culture of the ideas of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, dignity, tolerance, self-realization, peace will become a factor in overcoming the counterproductive political and legal automatisms of Ukrainian mentality.
