(Note: persons who are unable to question professorial philosophy, i.e., non-philosophy or the anti-philosophic rigmarole of a textbook, are kindly requested not to answer.)
The group presents some impressionistic half-notions, not yet worked out perfectly:
When persons act from authority they are more stupid than animals, in the sense that animals can be trained, but those commanded by authority stay obstinately with the authority at all costs.
Authority is more deaf than what one understands from one’s own resources. It resists all reason. The view had on authority could not reason if it wanted to, since it is not inwardly understood (even though, and even more because, an explanation can be readily retailed by the one under the spell of authority). Whoever has thought through something is more open to reason. However, what is authority? For the young, whose whole life is in the hand of the teacher, the teacher is authority. It is easy to teach the dependent to rehearse various tropes and concepts. For instance, although it is patently obvious that Socrates was not a law professor in the twentieth century, the ordinary American lawyer will go for thirty or forty years confidently announcing that they have the “Socratic Method” in their possession.
A thousand and one such notion dominate the mind of the non-philosophic person, who sits under the storm clouds, lightening, and negative gravity which hangs above the earth, never able to question the authority that works in them through their lives. Ergo, they are part of the blind train of the tradition.
In a certain sense, the concept learned in the pro-seminar is the most authoritative, which is to say, the least well known. It is the highest form of stupidity. Is this because it was attained while the one involved was too young to think for oneself, or is it because it was learned while the future of the student was precariously and knowingly in the hands of the teacher?
When is questioning possible, and when is the thing freely thought through, as yet, beyond articulation?
a. the thing had on authroity
b. the notion, half articulate, according to the personality and therefore prior to specific teaching in a classroom ( e.g., the idiosyncratically characteristic frame of mind)
c. the thing gained freely through the powers of questioning
c., However, is perhaps never free, but it indicates being moved by what is said in the investigation. Its sole advantage is in the vista, in its distance from mere personal speculation.