Boston College Studies in Philosophy3- Authority

It seems evident to anyone giving thought to the matter, that at the root of contemporary social ruptures lies an attack on the theory and practice of authority. It seems evident to anyone giving thought to the matter, that at the root of contemporary social ruptures lies an attack on the theory and practice of authority. Marcuse's philosophy could be equated with anti-authoritarianism. His anti-establishment theses cut deeply into the roots of every contemporary institutional structure, whether it be the giant military governmental complex, the family, the universities, or simply the "status quo. " His Critical Philosophy has apparent roots in the Frankfurt School of Social Research and in the early Marxist revisionists like Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky, all of which In fact, the main point of philosophical thinking is anti-authoritarian. Feuerbach'sEssenceo/Christianity is an attempt to demythologize all authoritarian structures by centering the attack against the belief in a real God and in the institutionalized structures that defend such a belief. Furthermore, ethicians and political scientists over the centuries have been vague in their treatment of the notion of authority. The old scholastic textbooks referred to authority as the "form" of society; the newer ones omitted the point altogether. Even Professor Carl J. Fried­ rich's volume in the "Nomos" series (I958) entitled "Authority" did not venture further back with any depth beyond the post-Reformation era. The "Syntopicon", a nugget of philosophical concepts in the tra­ dition of the West, has no special topic on "authority. " This is strange in the light of what has happened.