The paper examines legal positivism by Gustav Radbruch, Georg Jellinek and Hans Kelsen. Gustav Radbruch and Georg Jellinek’s legal positivism was based on social reality. Hans Kelsen, contrary to that, considered norms an inceptive of the law and “purified” it from any social “supplement”. Radbruch’s idea of law encompasses justice, expediency and legal certainty. In the frameworks of these three opposing notions, Gerhard Kegel’s theory of interest is discussed along with its collusive and legal characteristics. Georg Jellinek’s theory of the Normative Force of the Factual and private international law from the perspective of Hans Kelsen’s normativism is also discussed in the paper. Both aspects of positive law are studied in the scope of modern social and political development. The author argues that modern science and practice mostly rely on social methods of understanding law, although in specific instances, the separate provisions of normativism are also interesting and original.