Authority Without Subject

This article investigates the structural conditions under which authority can be enacted without subjective agency, intentionality, or interpretive judgment. Departing from traditional models grounded in enunciation and ethical justification, the analysis focuses on compiled systems where commands are produced and executed solely through formal grammar. Legitimacy in these environments is not discursively negotiated but structurally resolved. Drawing on a comparative corpus of theoretical contributions (including proposals on impersonal grammar, syntactic enforcement, and institutional automation) the article outlines how obedience is generated by compatibility, not persuasion. Particular attention is paid to how epistemic authority is being redefined in educational, bureaucratic, and academic systems, where interpretive roles are replaced by executable validation. The disappearance of the subject in these systems does not signal the absence of power, but the consolidation of a new form: structural authority without judgment.

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2025-07-04
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15807748
Primary Topic
Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Authority Without Subject

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies
article

Authority Without Subject

article en

Abstract

This article investigates the structural conditions under which authority can be enacted without subjective agency, intentionality, or interpretive judgment. Departing from traditional models grounded in enunciation and ethical justification, the analysis focuses on compiled systems where commands are produced and executed solely through formal grammar. Legitimacy in these environments is not discursively negotiated but structurally resolved. Drawing on a comparative corpus of theoretical contributions (including proposals on impersonal grammar, syntactic enforcement, and institutional automation) the article outlines how obedience is generated by compatibility, not persuasion. Particular attention is paid to how epistemic authority is being redefined in educational, bureaucratic, and academic systems, where interpretive roles are replaced by executable validation. The disappearance of the subject in these systems does not signal the absence of power, but the consolidation of a new form: structural authority without judgment.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Universidad de Buenos Aires (AR)
Peace, Justice and strong institutions
Openalex Percentile: Top 43%
Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies
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Authority Without Subject · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS