The Notion Of Authority

In The Notion of Authority, written in the 1940s in Nazi-occupied France, Alexandre Kojève uncovers the conceptual premises of four primary models of authority, examining the practical application of their derivative variations from the Enlightenment to Vichy France. This foundational text, translated here into English for the first time, is the missing piece in any discussion of sovereignty and political authority, worthy of a place alongside the work of Weber, Arendt, Schmitt, Agamben or Dumézil. The Notion of Authority is a short and sophisticated introduction to Kojève’s philosophy of right. It captures its author’s intellectual interests at a time when he was retiring from the career of a professional philosopher and was about to become one of the pioneers of the Common Market and the idea of the European Union.

In The Notion of Authority, written in the 1940s in Nazi-occupied France, Alexandre Kojève uncovers the conceptual premises of four primary models of authority, examining the practical application of their derivative variations from the Enlightenment to Vichy France. This foundational text, translated here into English for the first time, is the missing piece in any discussion of sovereignty and political authority, worthy of a place alongside the work of Weber, Arendt, Schmitt, Agamben or Dumézil. The Notion of Authority is a short and sophisticated introduction to Kojève’s philosophy of right. It captures its author’s intellectual interests at a time when he was retiring from the career of a professional philosopher and was about to become one of the pioneers of the Common Market and the idea of the European Union.

In The Notion of Authority, written in the 1940s in Nazi-occupied France, Alexandre Kojve uncovers the conceptual premises of four primary models of authority, examining the practical application of their derivative variations from the Enlightenment to Vichy France. This foundational text, translated here into English for the first time, is the missing piece in any discussion of sovereignty and political authority, worthy of a place alongside the work of Weber, Arendt, Schmitt, Agamben or Dumzil. The Notion of Authority is a short and sophisticated introduction to Kojve's philosophy of right. It captures its author's intellectual interests at a time when he was retiring from the career of a professional philosopher and was about to become one of the pioneers of the Common Market and the idea of the European Union.

In government, the term authority is often used interchangeably with power. However, their meanings differ: while power is defined as "the ability to influence somebody to do , for example by lynching, people who believe in the rule of law consider that only a court of law has the authority to punish a criminal legally as the law says.Read to know more.

Authority is one of the key issues in political studies, for the question of by what right one person or several persons govern others is at the very root of political activity. In selecting key readings for this volume Joseph Raz concerns himself primarily with the moral aspect of political authority, choosing pieces that examine its justification, determine who is subject to it and who is entitled to hold it, and whether there are any general moral limits to it. The readings—by such modern political thinkeres as Robert Paul Wolff, H. L. A. Hart, G. E. M. Anscombe, and Ronald Dworkin—examine the basic moral issues and provide an essential introduction to the debate about the nature of authority for all students of political theory.

This influential and widely used book has been extensively revised and includes a new chapter on linguistic discrimination on the basis of class, race and ethnicity.

The state is often ascribed a special sort of authority, one that obliges citizens to obey its commands and entitles the state to enforce those commands through threats of violence. This book argues that this notion is a moral illusion: no one has ever possessed that sort of authority.