A New Concept of Authority: Simone Weil against Alexandre Kojève (1942–1943)
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This article compares two near-simultaneous formulations of the concept of authority written in the midst of the Second World War: Alexandre Kojève’s The Notion of Authority (1942) and Simone Weil’s The Need of Roots (1942–1943). Their thematic convergence, forged within the horizon of the Resistance, reopens a problem rarely thematized by twentieth-century philosophy: in a world war, how to think authority beyond its reduction to mere force. Kojève present his “phenomenological” and ontological analysis: authority is a social relation in which an agent acts upon others without provoking a reaction because it is recognized; hence “illegitimate authority” would be a contradiction. Weil offer an alternative notion: authority must emanate from those who are governed, be loved, and nourish freedom and obedience through consent; it must likewise be oriented toward inspiring rather than coercing. The comparison concludes by raising questions about legitimacy, tradition, and violence.
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References
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