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What Authority Is Not

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Sebastian De Grazia
Sebastian De Grazia
Affiliation:
The Twentieth Century Fund
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Extract

Authority is a subject indispensable to politics. No other word carries its basic sense of legitimate power, power exercised over those who have willed its exercise. Cut off from the vocabulary of political theorists it comes back in other guises. Playing hide-and-seek with words would not in itself be so important were it not that it takes time merely to recognize that a game is being played and to realign the new words, each bearing a fraction of the old meaning, into the framework of facts and ideas with which the original concept was associated. It can be urged, on the positive side, that a re-shuffling of words, breaking them up and giving them slightly different connotations, might stir up not only clouds of dust but also some original thinking. This has not happened with the principle of authority. Rather it has been forgotten and is now remembered. The interval has seen little gain. Perhaps “power” has profited in attention, but at the expense of being confused with authority and thus of giving new life to the Thrasymachian conception of politics and its study. Instead, the subject matter of the political scientist is earthly authority and its relation to the divine.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 1959 , pp. 321 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1959

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References

1 For authority and perception and their bearing on fact and value see my “Authority and Rationality,” Philosophy (London), Vol. 26 (1952)Google Scholar.

2 Henry Nettleship, Contributions to Latin Lexicography (1889): auctōrǐtās—(II. auctor), properly the position of an auctor. II. auctor: probably from a lost verb augěre, the base of which is identical with that of εὕχομαι and αὺχάω (see s.v. augur); so “one who tells or declares.” 1. One who gives his sanction to a thing, approves of it, advises the doing of it. For example in Plautus Pseudolus, quid nunc mihi's auctor, Simo? (what do you advise me to do?) or in Cicero, auctor nostrae coniunctionis (advises us to hold together) or often in Caesar, auctor novorum, consiliorum, armorum, belli; and in Sallustius, Vergilius, and all Latin. Augur—abbreviated A or AV on coins: C.I.L. I. 479 (about 54 B.C.) 1. One who foretells or prophesies; in its oldest use probably of the official prophets of the Roman people. Ernout, A. and Meillet, A., Dictionaire etymologique de la Langue Latine (3d ed., 1951)Google Scholar: auctōritās—fait d'être auctor, avec tous les sens du mot. Auctor—sens premier “celui qui fait croître, ou qui fait pousser.” En dehors de ce sens, le mot semble avoir appartenu dès la période italique comme aux langues de la religion et du droit. L'ombrien a la forme uhtur “auctor,” titre d'un magistrat des fratres Atiedii analogue au χορυφαǐος grec; on peut rapprocher l'emploi, dans la langue officielle latine, de auctor “qui in senatu primus sententiam dicit,” e.g., Cic., Pis. 35, senatus decreuit Cn. Pompeio auctore et eius sententiae principe. Celt.: irl. auctor, gall. awdur, awdurdod. Augeō, augere—emploi transitif et absolu (comme αǔξω, αύξάνω 1° faire croître; accroître; augmenter; amplifier; 2° s'accroître. —Ancien, usuel. Ce sens général de “[s]'accroître” apparait dans un grand nombre de dérivés. D'autres, au contraire, en passant dans les langues techniques, ont pris des sens spéciaux tels que la parenté avec augeō n'est souvent plus sensible. Tels sont augur, auclor, auctōritās, auctōrō, audiō, et auxilia. Augur, -uris m.: augure (prêtre) est un ancien nom du type fulgur/fulguris ou fulgeris. Le dérivé augustus atteste, à côté du thème en -r, l'existence d'un thème en -s *augus-. Le sens du mot devait être à l'origine “accroissement accordé par les dieux à une enterprise,” d'ou “présage favorable,” ou, s'il s'agit d'un ancien masculin, “celui qui donne les présages favorables.” La rapport entre augeō, auctōritās et augur apparâit dans cette phrase de Cicéron, de har. resp. 18, rerum bene gerendarum auctoritates augurio … contineri. Ainsi donc augur désigne celui qui donne les présages assurant l'accroissement d'une enterprise.

3 A fuller discussion of the language and trappings of authority can be found in my Errors of Psychotherapy (New York, 1952)Google Scholar.

4 The relation of authority to the political covenant and to order is treated in de Grazia, Sebastian, “The Principle of Authority in Its Relation to Freedom,” Educational Forum, Vol. 15 (1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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