Abstract

The article is a systematic reflection on authority, considering different ways of interpretation in order to provide a guidance and draw a concept map. In the first point the analysis focuses the general approach of political science; the second point is addressed to explicate authority in the perspective of modernity started by Hobbes, which shapes the idea of authority we find in Carl Schmitt and also in Giorgio Agamben. Finally, the attention focuses on Hannah Arendt’s and Augusto del Noce’s essays on authority, which attempt to define it by looking at the connection to freedom developed in the pre-modern age. Through this critical path, it is possible to outline the contours of what authority could mean also in our time.