Authority and Reality

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Abstract

This essay addresses both the pervasiveness of authority in the secular world and the shape and structure of the phenomenon of authority. It argues that what religious thought and Catholic thought in particular acknowledges as realities in the world, but conventional secular thought does not, are elements of the phenomenon of authority and in fact essential to social, economic, political, and scientific enterprise under the conditions of modernity. The various contributions Catholic thought can make today to jurisprudence and to legal and judicial practice will have their source in this acknowledgment, which can help the secular world move toward a more conscious apprehension of what is implicit in its practices and necessary to its aspirations.

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