The Notion of Authority. Alexandre Kojève

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СКАЧАТЬ general theory of the state in the future can disregard the various developments relating to the unity or plurality of forms of political authority, as well as its transmission, whether within the same type or from one type to another.

      There are of course also ‘ethical applications’ of authority, Kojève writes, with ‘an authoritarian ethics’ serving as its necessary support: this is what has to be done to acquire and exert it, its nature and characters varying according to each type. Traditional reason, however, takes into consideration above all, if not exclusively, the authority of the judge. The return to the past, as well as study of the Japanese or Hindu middle ages, would show that a diversity of approaches becomes imperative, especially on the subject of the authority of the master. Investigation becomes all the more necessary in so far as such knowledge would permit a better understanding of many tragic historical conflicts. Above all, it would make it possible to overcome an incomplete analysis informed by a ‘Christian or bourgeois morality’, bound up, at least in its origins, with a ‘servile’ morality opposed to the morality of the ‘masters’.

      Even if there exist on the plane of ethics extensions of the various types of pure authority, it remains that, in all cases, authority implies at the same time a power to resist but also an absence of resistance – better, an obedience, even if by using this notion, to which the author resorts only rarely, we must add something to his line of thought. Right or duty to resist, active or passive obedience, authority or oppression, legality or legitimacy of power, are so many further questions, not to mention the psychological applications of the authority exercised, and, especially, endured, where the powers of propaganda, of ‘rational demagogy’ and education come into play, either together or in conflict.

      Rather than pursue this line of analysis, Kojève illustrates his argument by focusing on current events and a study of the ‘authority that exists in France in 1942’. It is then a question of ‘the Marshal’s authority’. Kojève notes in Philippe Pétain a ‘total political authority – that is to say, the order of the four “pure” types of authority that it implies’: that of the master, victor of Verdun; that of the leader; capable of foreseeing events; that of the judge, impartial and disinterested; and that of the father, attached to the traditions of the past. This presentation does not at any point express any attachment of a political nature, and neither does it judge the legality or legitimacy of the power of Vichy or that of London. ‘We have good reasons to think’, writes Dominique Auffret, ‘that Kojève believes that the enemy must be embraced the better to strangle him … we know that [this reflection] theorised a politics of the worm in the bud, susceptible to different interpretations, but which, for Kojève, must be read in a highly sophisticated way. It suggests that he did not exclude the option of having to live with the reality of the Pétainist state.’³¹ Despite the example selected being a burning question, Kojève’s argument actually pertained to an approach that was mainly methodical, foreign to either Collaboration or Resistance, to right or left, to the activities of the one or the other. What Kojève underscored, again in a profoundly Hegelian manner, was the authority of a man gathering in his person – as seen by those who noted this fact and in line with his philosophical theory – the characters of the four pure types.

      Moreover, the author notes that, after two years in power, the authority of the Marshal has not withstood the test of time, as could not have been avoided bearing in mind its very origin. The master, as military leader, was thus necessarily fragile because of his age, which explained the resort to the admiral (François Darlan). As for the father, his reference to tradition was diminished by the necessity to ‘penetrate into the Future’, and Kojève notes a similar weakening of the authority of the judge, with ‘the unfortunate turn that the Riom trials have taken’. The slippages noted here lead us therefore to recognise, in the combination analysed, the primacy of the authority of the leader. But its persistence, subordinated to the necessity of a ‘project’, was supported in this instance only by a programme, or rather a topos – a ‘logical place [that is] still empty’: the Révolution nationale, because ‘in May 1942, France does not yet have a revolutionary idea’. Even so, Kojève does not ‘make any claim to be able to propose a (national) revolutionary idea to France in 1942’ [p. 102]. He nevertheless constructs, precisely out of variants of the different types, the form of a state that realises the political authority corresponding to the analysed combination in terms of constitutional structure – even envisaging, in relation to work, the existence of corporations.

      At the same time, when Kojève was conceiving the notion of authority, one of the great minds to have followed his teaching, Father Gaston Fessard, was pursuing a parallel reflection.³² He too asked key questions about legitimacy: Where is to be found the common good of the people and the authority necessary to lead the will of everyone towards this unique goal? The conclusions reached by both authors complement each other.

      Master, leader, judge, and father. Kojève reveals and explains a typology that is already present in consciousness and in behaviour, while outlining an enriched philosophy and a programme with a universal susceptibility to further in-depth analysis. His thought surpasses the tripartite schemas discovered in the Indo-European world and in Georges Dumézil’s triad of the flamines³³ in Roman religion. It also allows us to understand better in our own time all crises of authority, respect, and obedience. It leads towards a distinction between the four forms of power deduced from the four pure types described. In a world driven by an anguished quest for its bearings, Kojève’s reflection marks a renewed return to reason.

Preliminary Remarks

      It is a curious fact that the problem and notion of authority have been little studied. Questions pertaining to the transfer of authority and its genesis have been the main concern, while the actual essence of this phenomenon has rarely attracted any attention. However, it is obviously impossible to tackle political power or even the structure of the state without knowing what authority is as such. A study of the notion of authority, albeit provisional, is therefore essential, and must precede any study of the question of the state.

      To say that theories of authority are lacking is not to say that they are nonexistent. If we forget about variants, we can say that four distinct (essentially different and irreducible) theories have been proposed in the course of history:

      1. The theological or theocratic theory: primary and absolute Authority belongs to God; all other (relative) authorities are derived from it. (This theory was elaborated mainly by the Scholastics, but the partisans of ‘legitimate’, not to say hereditary, monarchy also claim it as their own.)

      2. Plato’s theory: ‘Just’ or ‘legitimate’ authority is based on, and emanates from, ‘justice’ or ‘equity’. Any authority that has a different character is only a pseudo-authority that is in reality nothing other than (more or less brute) force.

      3. Aristotle’s theory, in which the justification for authority is found in wisdom, knowledge, and the possibility of anticipating, of transcending the immediate present.

      4. Hegel’s theory, which reduces the relationships of authority to that of master and slave (of victor and vanquished), the former having been ready to risk his life to be recognised while the latter has chosen submission over death.

      Unfortunately, only the last theory has received comprehensive philosophical elaboration, developed not only on the level of phenomenological description but also that of metaphysical and ontological analysis. The remaining theories have not gone beyond the level of phenomenology, and are not, moreover, in any way complete even in this department. (It must be said that Hegel’s theory has never been truly understood and that it was very quickly forgotten. Thus, Hegel’s most important successor – Marx – completely neglected the problem of Authority.)

      All four theories are exclusive. Each of them acknowledges only one type of Authority СКАЧАТЬ