Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Authority: Authority refers to the legitimate power or right to give commands, make decisions, or enforce obedience, often within a specific context, such as a government, institution, or expertise in a field._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Enlightenment on Authority - Dictionary of Arguments
Gadamer I 276 Authority/Enlightenment/Gadamer: [The] doctrine of prejudices developed by the Enlightenment (...) [brings] forth the following basic classification of them: one must distinguish between the prejudice of human prestige and that of haste. >Prejudice. Prejudices with regard to the people who harbour them. It is either the prestige of others, their authority, which leads us to make mistakes, or it is the haste in oneself. The fact that authority is a source of prejudice agrees with the well-known principle of the Enlightenment, as Kant put it: "Have the courage to use your own intellect. [The Enlightenment] wants to understand the tradition correctly, i.e. without prejudice and rationally. This, however, has its very special difficulty inasmuch as the mere fact that in the written fixation Gadamer I 277 lies a moment of authority of particular importance. The possibility that what has been written is not true is not easy to realise. Written material has the palpability of the pointable and is like a piece of evidence. >Evidence, >Proofs, >Provability; for today's problems see >Misinformation. A special critical effort is needed to free oneself from the prejudice cherished in favour of what is written and to distinguish here too, as with all oral assertions, between opinion and truth.(3) Now it is the general tendency of the Enlightenment not to accept any authority and to decide everything before the judgment seat of reason. Thus also the written tradition, the Holy Scripture like all other historical knowledge, cannot be valid per se, but the possible truth of the tradition depends on the credibility that reason grants it. >Bible Criticism/Enlightenment. Authority/Gadamer: The contrast between the belief in authority and the use of one's own reason, as claimed by the Enlightenment, is in itself justified. Insofar as the validity of authority takes the place of one's own judgement, authority is indeed a source of prejudice. >Justification, >Ultimate Justification. But that it can also be a source of truth is not excluded, and the Enlightenment misjudged this when it defamed all authority. To be sure of this, one can refer to one of the greatest pioneers of the European Enlightenment: Descartes: Despite all the radicalism of his methodical thinking, Descartes, as is well known, excluded the things of morality from the claim of a complete reconstruction of all truths from reason. This was the purpose of his provisional morality. >R. Descartes, >Morals/Descartes. 1. Praeiudicium auctoritatis et precipitantiae: As Christian Thomasius already said in his lectiones de praeiudiciis (1689/90) and his "Einleitung der Vernunftlehre" c. 13, SS 39/ 40. Cf. the article in Walch, Philosophisches Lexikon (1726), p. 2794ff. 2. In the beginning of his essay »Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?« 3. A good example of this is how slowly the authority of ancient historiography has been destroyed in historical research, and how gradually archival research and soil research have asserted themselves (Cf. z. B. R. G. Collingwood, Denken. Eine Autobiographie, X I. Kapitel, who almost parallels the turn to soil research with the Bacon revolution in natural science)._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Enlightenment Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |
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> Counter arguments against Enlightenment
> Counter arguments in relation to Authority
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-19