Intellectual authority is defined as the authority of arguments that prevail by virtue of good reasoning and do not depend on coercion or convention. A contrasting notion, institutional authority, refers to the power of social institutions to enforce acceptance of arguments that may or may not possess intellectual authority. The authority wielded for applying the intellectual authority of the law and possess no coercive powers of their own.
In contrast, some critics maintain that whatever authority judicial pronouncements have is exclusively institutional. Some of these critics go further, claiming that intellectual authority does not really exist—i.e., it reduces to institutional authority. But it can be countered that these claims break down when a sufficiently broad historical perspective is taken: Not beliefs is common in intellectual history; intellectual authority and institutional consensus are not the same thing.
But, the critics might respond, intellectual authority is only recognized as such because of institutional consensus. For example, if a musicologist were to claim that an alleged musical genius who, after several decades, had not gained respect and recognition for his or her compositions is probably not a genius, the critics might that such institutional procedures have proved useful to musicologists in making such distinctions in the past.
The analogous legal concept is the doctrine of precedent, i.e., a judge’s merely deciding a case a certain way becoming a basis for deciding later cases the same way—a pure example of institutional authority. But the critics miss the crucial distinction that when a judicial decision is badly reasoned, or simply no a significant degree of intellectual authority even if the thrust of their power is predominantly institutional.
What this question is testing
Anticipate
This is a Local Purpose question. The trick is to remember whose point the musicology example is making.
The example shows up in a paragraph that begins "But, the critics might respond..." So this isn't the author's example — it's the critics'. They're using it to make a specific argumentative move: even when you think you're using pure intellectual judgment (this composer isn't a genius after decades of obscurity), you're actually leaning on an institutional convention (the unit "decades"). So even intellectual authority requires institutional authority.
Goal
Look for an answer that names the example as illustrating the critics' claim — that assessing intellectual authority requires an appeal to institutional authority. Common traps:
Answers that say it distinguishes the two notions — but the example is about how they're intertwined
Answers that frame it as "intellectual authority losing" — that's not the point
Answers that overstate — claiming all music authority reduces to institutional authority
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