Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte
Western Philosophy
19th-century philosophy
Auguste Comte.jpg
Full name Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte
Birth 17 January 1798
Flag of France Montpellier, France
Death 5 September 1857
Flag of France Paris, France (aged 59)
School/tradition Sociology
Positivism
Notable ideas Law of three stages,
Encyclopedic law
Influenced by
Influenced

Auguste Comte (full name: Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte; 17 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French thinker, one from founders of sociology (from the Latin: socius, "companion"; and the suffix -ology, "the study of", from Greek λόγος, lógos, "knowledge"[1]) and positivism.

Contents

Life

Comte was born at Montpellier, in southern France. After attending the Lycée Joffre[2] and then the University of Montpellier, one of the oldest European universities, Comte was admitted to the École Polytechnique in Paris. The École Polytechnique was notable for its adherence to the French ideals of republicanism and progress. The École closed in 1816 for reorganization, however, causing Comte to leave and continue his studies at the medical school at Montpellier. When the École Polytechnique reopened, he did not request readmission.

Following his return to Montpellier, Comte soon came to see unbridgeable differences with his Catholic and Monarchist family and set again for Paris, earning money by small jobs. In August 1817 he became a student and secretary for Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, who brought Comte into intellectual society. In 1824, Comte left Saint-Simon, again because of unbridgeable differences.

Comte now knew what he wanted to do - work out the philosophy of positivism. This plan he published as Plan de travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour réorganiser la société (1822) (Plan of scientific studies necessary for the reorganization of society). But he failed to get an academic position. His day-to-day life depended on sponsors and financial help from friends.

He married Caroline Massin, but divorced in 1842. In 1826 he was brought into a mental health hospital, but left without being cured – only stabilized by Massin – so that he could work again on his plan. In the time between this and their divorce, he published the six volumes of his Cours.

From 1844, Comte was involved with Clotilde de Vaux, a relationship that remained platonic. After her death in 1846 this love became quasi-religious, and Comte saw himself as founder and prophet of a new "religion of humanity". He published four volumes of Système de politique positive (1851 - 1854).

He died in Paris on 5 September 1857 and is buried at the famous Cimetière du Père Lachaise. His apartment from 1841-1857 is now conserved as the Maison d'Auguste Comte.

Legacy

The motto Ordem e Progresso ("Order and Progress") in the flag of Brazil is inspired by Auguste Comte's motto of positivism: L'amour pour principe et l'ordre pour base; le progrès pour but ("Love as a principle and order as the basis; Progress as the goal"). It was inserted because several of the people involved in the military coup d'état that deposed the monarchy and proclaimed Brazil a republic were followers of the ideas of Comte.

One universal law that Comte saw at work in all sciences he called the 'law of three phases'. It is by his statement of this law that he is best known in the English-speaking world; namely, that society has gone through three phases: Theological, Metaphysical, and Scientific.[3] To the last of these he also gave the name "Positive," because of the polysemous connotations of that word.

The Theological phase was seen from the perspective of 19th century France as preceding the Enlightenment, in which man's place in society and society's restrictions upon man were referenced to God. Man blindly believed in whatever he was taught by his ancestors. He believed in a supernatural power. Fetishism played a significant role during this time. By the "Metaphysical" phase, he referred not to the Metaphysics of Aristotle or other ancient Greek philosophers. Rather, the idea was rooted in the problems of French society subsequent to the revolution of 1789. This Metaphysical phase involved the justification of universal rights as being on a vauntedly higher plane than the authority of any human ruler to countermand, although said rights were not referenced to the sacred beyond mere metaphor. This stage is known as the stage of investigation, because people started reasoning and questioning although no solid evidence was laid. In the Scientific phase, which came into being after the failure of the revolution and of Napoleon, people could find solutions to social problems and bring them into force despite the proclamations of human rights or prophecy of the will of God. Science started to answer questions in full stretch. In this regard he was similar to Karl Marx and Jeremy Bentham. For its time, this idea of a Scientific phase was considered up-to-date, although from a later standpoint it is too derivative of classical physics and academic history. Comte's law of three stages was one of the first theories of social evolutionism.

The other universal law he called the 'encyclopedic law'. By combining these laws, Comte developed a systematic and hierarchical classification of all sciences, including inorganic physics (astronomy, earth science and chemistry) and organic physics (biology and, for the first time, physique sociale, later renamed sociologie). Independently from Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès's introduction of the term in 1780, Comte re-invented 'sociologie', and introduced the term as a neologism, in 1838. Comte had earlier used the term 'social physics', but that term had been appropriated by others, notably Adolphe Quetelet.

This idea of a special science—not the humanities, not metaphysics—for the social was prominent in the 19th century and not unique to Comte. It has recently been discovered that the term "sociology" - a term considered coined by Comte - had already been introduced in 1780, albeit with a different meaning, by the French essayist Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836).[4]The ambitious—many would say grandiose—way that Comte conceived of this special science of the social, however, was unique. Comte saw this new science, sociology, as the last and greatest of all sciences, one which would include all other sciences and integrate and relate their findings into a cohesive whole. It has to be pointed out, however, that there was a seventh science, one even greater than sociology. Namely, Comte considered "Anthropology, or true science of Man [to be] the last gradation in the Grand Hierarchy of Abstract Science".[5]

Comte’s explanation of the Positive philosophy introduced the important relationship between theory, practice and human understanding of the world. On page 27 of the 1855 printing of Harriet Martineau’s translation of The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, we see his observation that, “If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts can not be observed without the guidance of some theories. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them: for the most part we could not even perceive them."[6]

He used the word "altruism" to refer to what he believed to be a moral obligation of individuals to serve others and place their interests above one's own. He opposed the idea of individual rights, maintaining that they were not consistent with this supposed ethical obligation (Catechisme Positiviste).

In Comte's lifetime, his work was sometimes viewed skeptically, with perceptions that he had elevated Positivism to a religion and had named himself the Pope of Positivism. Comte is generally regarded as the first Western sociologist (Ibn Khaldun having preceded him in the East by nearly four centuries). Comte's emphasis on the interconnectedness of social elements was a forerunner of modern functionalism. Nevertheless, as with many others of Comte's time, certain elements of his work are now viewed as eccentric and unscientific, and his grand vision of sociology as the centerpiece of all the sciences has not come to fruition.

His emphasis on a quantitative, mathematical basis for decision-making remains with us today. It is a foundation of the modern notion of Positivism, modern quantitative statistical analysis, and business decision-making. His description of the continuing cyclical relationship between theory and practice is seen in modern business systems of Total Quality Management and Continuous Quality Improvement where advocates describe a continuous cycle of theory and practice through the four-part cycle of plan, do, check, and act. Despite his advocacy of quantitative analysis, Comte saw a limit in its ability to help explain social phenomena.

Three Stages

Main article: Law of three stages

"The law is this: -that each of our leading conceptions, -each branch of our knowledge, -passes successively through three different theoretical conditions: the Theological, or fictitious; the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or positive." -Comte[7]

  1. Theological Stage
    1. Fetishism
    2. Polytheism
    3. Monotheism
  2. Metaphysical or Abstract Stage
  3. Positive Stage

See also

Bibliography

Notes

The following footnotes may refer to reference works.

  1. ↑ "Sociology" in Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Craig Calhoun (ed), Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN-10: 0195123719, ISBN-13: 978-0195123715
  2. ↑ "Rencontre avec Annie Petit "Auguste Comte"". Montpellier Agglomeration (2007-10-19). Retrieved on 2008-10-15. ""Né à Montpellier, brillant élève du Lycée Joffre..." Translation: "Born in Montpellier, shining student of the Lycée Joffre...""
  3. ↑ In writings of philosophy, some terms are traditionally capitalized when used as the names of major ideas, particularly when those ideas are repeated in the discourse. Such temporary capitalization is rare in other fields.
  4. ↑ Des Manuscrits de Sieyès. 1773-1799, Volumes I and II, published by Christine Fauré, Jacques Guilhaumou, Jacques Vallier et Françoise Weil, Paris, Champion, 1999 and 2007. See also Jacques Guilhaumou, Sieyès et le non-dit de la sociologie: du mot à la chose, in Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, Numéro 15, novembre 2006 : Naissances de la science sociale.
  5. ↑ 1874 translation of System of Positive Polity, Vol. II, pages 356-347, cited in Urbanowicz, Charles F. 1992. Four-Field Commentary, Anthropology Newsletter, Volume 33, Number 9, page 3
  6. ↑ Comte, A. b(1974 reprint). The positive philosophy of Auguste Comte freely translated and condensed by Harriet Martineau. New York, NY: AMS Press. (Original work published in 1855, New York, NY: Calvin Blanchard, p. 27.b)
  7. ↑ From The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (trans. Harriet Martineau; London, 1853), Vol. I, pp. 1

External links