You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This is an attempt to define authority. Certain definitions are essential. Authority may be rational or irrational. When the terms “rational” and “irrational” are used I mean “predominantly,” “on the whole” and “for the most part.” It is of course clear that absolute or perfect rationality is not humanly attainable and therefore does not exist; absolute or perfect irrationality is also not humanly possible. If a person were to approach that imaginable but not actualizable ultimate he would cease to exist as a living human being.
As essential background to this discussion of authority, I will discuss in sequence the terms rational and irrational, what I mean by “holism,” “system thinking” and the importance of the concept “position” in system thinking. Of necessity, comments on these concepts will have to be brief but I hope sufficient to indicate their meaning. An understanding of these concepts is basic for comprehending how I arrive at the posing of fruitful questions regarding the notion authority. Also at this point I want to make explicit that I am only discussing personal authority; i.e., a feeling a person derives from his evaluations of his feelings, thoughts and actions and those of others. I am not discussing functional authority; i.e., authority which derives from hereditary lineage, from a vested position in a group or organization, from acquired information, wealth or by virtue of a special competence, talent or gift whether innate and developed or acquired.
I feel this paper is essential background for work to follow: (1) on the process of change in therapy through which the feeling and fact of irrational authority changes to one of a feeling and fact of rational authority; (2) on the feeling and fact of rational and irrational authority as it manifests itself in group integrating; and (3) on the notion of authority as it manifests itself and is defined in religious, philosophical, ethical, aesthetic and factual systems.
I use the adjectives rational and