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<aside> 📌 THE IDEA OF AUTHORITY
We often say experts are “authorities” on their domain, and we use phrases like “leading authorities say. . .” or “we asked the premier authority on. . .” There is, however, an ambiguity in its meaning that is not always clear from context. Contemporary English allows us to distinguish between being an authority on something, in an epistemic sense, and being in authority over someone, in what Douglas Walton (2013) calls an “administrative” sense. But the earliest uses of authority do not typically make room for this epistemic sense. The Greek words translated as authority—autokrates (αὐτοκράτης), dunamis, (δύναμις), archon (ἄρχων), kuria (κυρία)—refer almost exclusively to institutional hierarchies of power or control: political authorities, legal authorities, and military authorities (and, as we move into the Middle Ages, religious authorities). In Euripides’s play Andromache, for example, we find:
Chorus When swift breezes are hurtling sailors along, [480] a double intelligence at the helm and a throng of wise men [sophon, σοφῶν] put together is less effective than a lesser mind with full authority [autokratous, αὐτοκρατοῦς]. The power to bring to pass in house and in city must be a single [person’s] if [people] wish. [485] to find their true advantage. (479–86) Here, we see authority linked firmly with “power.”
Aristotle reserves his discussion of authority for his book Politics (book III, ch. 6, 1278–9), where he describes various types of authority (archon), including the rule of a master over a slave, the rule of a husband over a wife and children, the rule of a trainer over the gymnast, and the helmsperson over a crew. All these senses imply some degree of control.
Importantly, Aristotle thinks that anyone imbued with authority, whether by nature (as he thinks is the case with master and slave) or election (as with political leaders), rules for “the good of the governed or for the common good of both parties.” He thinks this is clearest in cases of equality—where the trainer is sometimes also a gymnast, or the helmsperson is also one of the crew. In these cases, the authority receives (albeit “accidentally”) the benefit of their own rule. From this, Aristotle draws an assumption about political leaders: “And so in politics: when the state is framed upon the principle of equality and likeness, the citizens think that they ought to hold office by turns” (1279, 8–10). And in Plutarch’s Questiones Conviviales, we find: after Brutus had made himself master [κύριος] of the city, he treated all the inhabitants very mercifully. (Book VI, Question VIII). There is at least one exception to this theme of power and mastery, though. In Statesman, Plato’s Socrates talks about the authority of a doctor in a way that suggests it is not grounded purely in political legitimacy, but also in the knowledge to achieve the goal of the craft (techne):
Whether physicians [iatrous, ἰατρούς] cure us against our will or with our will, by cutting us or burning us or causing us pain in any other way, and whether they do it by written rules or without them, and whether they are rich or poor, we call them physicians just the same, so long as they exercise authority [archein, ἀρχὴν] by art or science [epistatountes techne, ἐπιστατοῦντες τέχνῃ], purging us or reducing us in some other way, or even adding to our weight, provided only that they who treat their patients treat them for the benefit of their health and preserve them better than they were. (293a–c, trans. John Burnet).
John Burnet translates techne as “art or science,” nodding to the complex relationship in the ancient world between what we now think of as “art” and “science” (see Section 2.3.9, this chapter). What the techne of medicine confers, according to this passage, is an episteme, a type of knowledge. The idea is that people are rightly called doctors just insofar as they use the knowledge they have gained from specialized practice for the benefit of others. Specialized practice grounds their right to offer this benefit. The word Burnet translates as “authority” (archein) is rendered “rule” by Harold Fowler, highlighting its almost inescapable association with politics (Fowler 1921).
To be sure, doctors acquired their authority in the ancient world partly based on public trust—they were publicly authorized (as it were) to practice medicine, and for that reason, they had a type of political authority. But Plato is adding a layer of complexity to this picture. The public should authorize physicians only insofar as that authority is grounded in something else, namely, art or science. This seemingly odd use forces us to ask: Given authority’s historical association with political power, is Plato really referring to something different—perhaps
a distinctly epistemic authority—or is he merely using political authority metaphorically (doctors exercise king-like rule over their patients because of their episteme)? The Romans did not expand on this epistemic implication of authority when they cultivated the term auctoritas. They accepted its administrative, or “control,” implications and used the term almost exclusively for political and military leaders. Historian Wilfried Nippel (2007) explains: In the public sphere, auctoritas is primarily associated with the role of the Roman senate. There are various technical meanings, as well as more general ones. Patrum auctoritas depicted the patrician senators’ ratification of the decisions by the popular assembly concerning legislation and elections of magistrates; only thus did the assembly’s votes become legally binding. (15–16) Importantly, however, the Romans added some nuance to the concept of authority by distinguishing it from the exercise of force: Magistrates who were successful in quelling riots by their appearance on the spot were praised for their auctoritas. In 138 B.C. a consul addressed a crowd that demanded measures against an increase in corn prices by declaring that he understood the public good better than they did. The crowd fell silent “paying more regard to his authority [auctoritas] than to their own nutriment.” . . . The same holds true for great generals. Pompeius or Caesar enjoyed the loyalty of their troops not only due to their formal competence as bearers of a military imperium and their military ability, but because of a personal authority that was of much greater importance, at least in critical situations. (Nippel 2007: 23) We see an example of this in Cicero’s On the Commonwealth: A statesman, therefore, who by his authority and by the punishments which his laws impose obliges all [people] to adopt that course which only a mere handful can be persuaded to adopt by the arguments of philosophers, should be held in even greater esteem than the teachers who make these virtues the domain of their discussions. (107) Cicero distinguishes authority from punishments but acknowledges that it entails the right to punish. He also distinguishes it from the persuasion of arguments. This suggests that the right to command and the obligation of others to obey is a function of public office.
Similarly, E. W. Sutton translates auctoritatem as “authoritative judgment” in a passage of Cicero’s De Oratore:
I prefer to Greek instruction the authoritative judgment [auctoritatem] of those to whom the highest honors in eloquence have been awarded by our fellow countrymen. (1.6.23)
Does Cicero intend to convey something about the social position of those to whom the highest honors have been awarded? Or is he saying their insights or wisdom make them worth listening to? Without a robust sense of context and intent, it is difficult to know what grounds authority in any given use, and, therefore, what it implies for those subject to it.
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