The authority of a master

Professor Kokot, a great physician, scientist and teacher passed away on Sunday, January 24, 2021. His contribution to medicine cannot be overestimated. He was a universal and undisputed scientific, professional, and moral authority.

Authority is a term which is on the one hand overused, and on the other hand difficult to define. Hans Georg Gadamer believed that authority was based on the act of acknowledging and knowing that the other person is superior in judgement and insight, and, for this reason, their judgement takes priority over any other’s.1 Gadamer also argues that it is the freedom of those under the authority that serves as the source of legitimate authority. Without such free recognition, authoritarian structures and strive for power may arise. Gadamer points out that if a person is “authoritarian” (autoritär), they draw upon institutional power and a hierarchical position to demonstrate authority. Genuine authority (authoritativeness), as opposed to formal authority (authoritarianism), does not refer to power, but to a form of genuinely recognized and not merely asserted validity. If someone has to invoke authority, they possess none. Genuine authority focuses on truth and discovering the conditions for the truth to emerge against human prejudice, superstition and proneness to accept our preferences as being true.

The authority of Prof. Kokot was not the result of any title bestowed upon him or any office he held, but widespread recognition of his use of reason and deep insight into the challenges he devoted his life to. For his closest coworkers, he was a true master.

The most important expectation pupils have of their master is a chance to place their complete trust in him. A Polish philosopher, Leszek Kołakowski, wrote: “The existence of people we can trust completely is probably the most important thing in life.”2 Trust in a master is something unique.

An eminent Polish sociologist, Piotr Sztompka, compares trust to specific capital which we launch when making bets in the everlasting gamble of forming contacts with other people. Placing trust, that is, making bets about future uncertain and uncontrollable actions of others, is always associated with risk. Our wagers of trust carry different degrees of risk depending on what we expect of our partners in social interactions. Piotr Sztompka mentions 3 categories of expectations.3

Instrumental expectations refer to the conduct traits of the partner (who can also be referred to as our expectation target). Regularity, correctness, and predictability seem the least risky to expect whereas an expectation of rationality, and then competence, skills, and efficiency raises the risk of our wagers of trust. All these are expected of a master. Please, note that the abovementioned expectations only describe some formal attributes of one’s actions, and not their essence. It is not specified whether someone is competent and efficient in doing something good or evil.

A master is also expected to meet some axiological expectations, that is, those of being reliable, honest, truthful, fair, and adhering to principles. These are quite high expectations, and the stakes are even higher—it is more difficult to be both rational and moral than to be just rational.

However, this is not all. We expect a master to be a caring person; these expectations are referred to as representative (Ralf Dahrendorf) or fiduciary (Bernard Barber). We then hope for thoughtfulness, noble-mindedness, altruism, and disinterested help. These expectations and the wager of trust are the most risky. Where to look for a noble altruist who adheres to his or her principles, and is competent, efficient, and rational? This was who you met in the person of Prof. Kokot. Beyond any doubt, Prof. Kokot was a true master.

The question then arises whether an emerging master–pupil relationship (social interaction, in the language of sociology) is characterized by some special features.

Sociology emphasizes the importance of emotional motivation and expression between interaction partners. In some types of social relations, such as love, friendship, parenthood, emotional motivation and expression of feelings are not only acceptable but also expected. These relationships are intimate warm ties of an autotelic character. The word autotelic comes from the Greek roots auto-, “self” and telos, an “end” or “goal.” By combining the 2, you get a self-goal—a goal within itself, that is, an activity which is intrinsically rewarding. Many sociologists believe that societies find the purest and most uncorrupted fulfillment through autotelic behaviors. A German sociologist of the 19th century, Ferdinand Toennies, distinguished between Gemeinschaft (“community”), a social form motivated by a “natural/essential will,” and consisting of co-operation, custom and religion, and Gesellschaft (“society”) formed around the “arbitrary will” in which an individual manipulates a social grouping towards achieving his individual goals. In the latter, it would be quite inappropriate to be driven by or show emotions. These behaviors are referred to as official or cold and may be exemplified by professional relationships: superior–subordinate, official–petitioner, expert–client.

There can, of course, be different degrees of warmth and coldness, mixed situations, and even manipulations. Robert Merton described pseudo--Gemeinschaft behavior as a device to win friends through apparently autotelic bonds, and then instrumentalize the relationships to control and exploit the partners. He also discussed some social roles that are expected to combine ambivalent expectations, and analyzed an example of the medical doctor, who is expected to be objective and technically efficient, but also to give the patient compassionate care (the concept of detached concern).

In the above context, the master–pupil relationship appears to be quite unique, and this is because in our everyday lives, we quite frequently confront pseudo-Gemeinschaft behaviors where someone is trying to take advantage of our trust. It seems that the master-pupil relationship begins with cold (ie, instrumental) behaviors, and then changes (although it is hard to say how and when) into autotelic, that is, warm bonds.

Dear Franciszek, the distress and regret your pupils experience after you had left can hardly be expressed. It seems there truly are irreplaceable individuals among us.