The twilight of the masters and the dawn of idols. Father Bocheński’s theory of authority

Abstract

A phenomenon of authority is one of the most important in social life but the concept of authority is at the same time one of the most difficult in theoretical perspective. Against the background of extensive literature about this problem an essay by J. M. Bocheński entitled What is authority? written in 1974 constitutes a masterpiece. In his analysis Bocheński puts forward as many as 88 theses in metaphysics of a man characterizing the authority. The main thesis says that “every authority is both epistemic and deontic one.” Although this thesis is doubtful, the reasoning of Bocheński is very clear and it opens the door for construction of theory of authority.
Author of this paper claims that authorities in general may be divided into personal and institutional ones. Personal authorities in turn split into fraternal and sectarian. Fraternal personal authority is a “mutual love between unequal persons.” This very basic category had been already distinguished by Aristotle. This type of authority is always of epistemic-deontic character. Such pattern of behaviors is also present in India and China, but it has been underestimated by Bocheński.
In the contemporary Western world we experience the “collapse of authorities.” In other words, the “false authorities dominate.” This means that we lack fraternal ones, namely the masters. In their place we have a plethora of sectarian authorities and idol-fan type of relations. Fall of authorities constitutes a result of technological advancement that ultimately altered the condition of human existence, thus complicating our recognition of congenial companions.