Page History

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9 July 1996; rev. 30 January 2002; 1 September 2006

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Wiki Markup"If "\[t\]o be a man ... is, as it were, to have an office," so that it makes sense to speak of a woman's or man's "office as a human being" (Adams), there is still the question of the sense it makes. The answer, arguably, is that the sense it makes is like the sense made in speaking about "the authority of reason or of facts" (De George). That is, it is an improper, non-literal, or, possibly, analogical or symbolic sense \ -\- in essentially the same way in which speaking of reality generally as a "society,' or a "polis," or a "commonwealth" involves using such terms in improper, non-literal, extended senses. Thus, for example, God is not simply "_an_ authority," not even the highest or supreme authority, because God is also the _primal source_ of all authority. Likewise, my being a child of God and authorized by God to live as such is not properly or literally a matter of my being authorized to fill an "office." True as it is that no one can fill an office, properly so-called, without authorization, it is not true that any authorization must be an authorization to some office, again, in the proper sense. In other words, there is an exact parallel here with the statement that, although every authority, properly so-called, is as such also a source of authority, the converse is false: not every source of authority is _an_ authority in literally the same sense as any other.

8 September 1999; rev. 30 January 2002; 1 September 2006

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