Encyclopedia, Difference between revisions of "Auguste Comte" - New World

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[[Image:Auguste_Comte.jpg|thumb|right|Auguste Comte]]
 
[[Image:Auguste_Comte.jpg|thumb|right|Auguste Comte]]
  
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'''Auguste Comte''' (full name '''Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte''') ([[January 17]] (recorded [[January 19]]), [[1798]] - [[September 5]], [[1857]]) was a French thinker known as the '[[List of people known as father or mother of something|father of sociology]]' who came up with the term [[sociology]] to name the new science pioneered by [[Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon|Saint-Simon]].  
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'''Auguste Comte''' (full name '''Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte''') ([[January 17]] (recorded [[January 19]]), [[1798]] - [[September 5]], [[1857]]) was a French thinker known as the "father of sociology," coining the term [[sociology]]. He is remembered for being the first to apply the [[Scientific Method|scientific method]] to the social world.
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==Life==
 
==Life==
 
He was born in [[Montpellier]], in southwestern France. After attending school there, Comte began studies at the [[École Polytechnique]] in [[Paris]]. There he learned about French [[republic]]an ideals and [[Progress (philosophy)|progress]]. In [[1816]], the École closed for re-organization. Comte did not reapply on its reopening, choosing to continue his studies at the medical school in Montpellier. While in Montpellier, he was unable to relate with his [[catholicism|Catholic]] and [[Monarchism|Monarchist]] family and left again for Paris, surviving through odd jobs.  
 
He was born in [[Montpellier]], in southwestern France. After attending school there, Comte began studies at the [[École Polytechnique]] in [[Paris]]. There he learned about French [[republic]]an ideals and [[Progress (philosophy)|progress]]. In [[1816]], the École closed for re-organization. Comte did not reapply on its reopening, choosing to continue his studies at the medical school in Montpellier. While in Montpellier, he was unable to relate with his [[catholicism|Catholic]] and [[Monarchism|Monarchist]] family and left again for Paris, surviving through odd jobs.  
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The other universal law he called the 'encyclopedic law'. This law led to 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''). 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. Comte's ambition, however, was unique.
 
The other universal law he called the 'encyclopedic law'. This law led to 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''). 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. Comte's ambition, however, was unique.
  
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==Legacy==
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He coined the word "[[altruism (ethics)|altruism]]" to refer to what he believed to be a moral obligations 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'').
 +
 
 +
===Positivism===
 +
 
 +
'''Positivism''' is a [[philosophy]] developed by [[Auguste Comte]] (widely regarded as the first true sociologist) in the early nineteenth century that stated that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. This view is sometimes referred to as a [[scientism|scientist]] [[ideology]], and is often shared by [[technocracy|technocrats]] who believe in the necessary [[social progress|progress]] through [[scientific progress]]. As an approach to the [[philosophy of science]] deriving from [[The Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] thinkers like [[Pierre-Simon Laplace]] (and many others), positivism was first systematically theorized by Comte, who saw the [[scientific method]] as replacing [[metaphysics]] in the history of thought, and who observed the circular dependence of theory and observation in science. Comte was thus one of the leading thinkers of the [[social evolutionism]] thought. [[Brazil]]'s national [[motto]], ''Ordem e Progresso'' ("Order and Progress") was taken from Comte's positivism, also influential in [[Positivism in Poland|Poland]]. Positivism is the most evolved stage of society in anthropological [[cultural_evolutionism|Evolutionism]], the point where science and rational explanation for scientific phenomena develops.  Marxism and predictive dialectics is a highly positivist system of theory. 
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Comte's positivism should not be confused with [[Logical positivism]], which originated in the [[Vienna Circle]] in the 1920s. Logical positivism is a school of philosophy that combines positivism—which states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge—with a version of [[a priori|apriorism]]—the notion that some propositional knowledge can be had without, or "prior to", experience.
 +
 
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The key features of positivism as of the [[1950]]s, as defined in the "received view"<ref>Hacking, I. (ed.) 1981. Scientific revolutions. - Oxford Univ. Press, New York.</ref>, are:
 +
#A focus on science as a product, a linguistic or numerical set of statements;
 +
#A concern with [[axiomatization]], that is, with demonstrating the logical structure and coherence of these statements;
 +
#An insistence on at least some of these statements being testable, that is amenable to being verified, confirmed, or falsified by the empirical observation of reality; statements that would, by their nature, be regarded as untestable included the [[teleology|teleological]]; (Thus positivism rejects much of classical metaphysics.)
 +
#The belief that science is markedly cumulative;
 +
#The belief that science is predominantly transcultural;
 +
#The belief that science rests on specific results that are dissociated from the personality and social position of the investigator;
 +
#The belief that science contains theories or research traditions that are largely commensurable;
 +
#The belief that science sometimes incorporates new ideas that are discontinuous from old ones;
 +
#The belief that science involves the idea of the unity of science, that there is, underlying the various scientific disciplines, basically one science about one real world.
 +
 
 +
Positivism is also depicted as "the view that all true knowledge is scientific,"<ref name="bullock">Alan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, [Eds] The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, London: Harper-Collins, 1999, pp.669-737</ref> and that all things are ultimately measurable. Because of its "close association with [[reductionism]],"<ref name="bullock"/> positivism and reductionism involve the view that "entities of one kind... are reducible to entities of another,"<ref name="bullock"/> such as societies to numbers, or mental events to chemical events. It also involves the contention that "processes are reducible to physiological, physical or chemical events,"<ref name="bullock"/> and even that "social processes are reducible to relationships between and actions of individuals,"<ref name="bullock"/> or that "biological organisms are reducible to physical systems."<ref name="bullock"/>
 +
 
 
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 theory.  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.'' (Comte, A. (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.)
 
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 theory.  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.'' (Comte, A. (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.)
  
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He coined the word "[[altruism (ethics)|altruism]]" to refer to what he believed to be a moral obligations 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'').
+
==Legacy==
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During his lifetime, Comte's work was sometimes viewed skeptically because he elevated Positivism to a religion and named himself the Pope of Positivism. Comte had earlier used the term '[[social physics]]' to refer to the positive science of society, but because others, most notably the Belgian statistician [[Adolphe Quetelet]], had begun to use that term in a different meaning, Comte felt the need to invent the [[neologism]] sociology, a [[hybrid word]] derived from the Latin 'socius' (friend) and the Greek λόγος (logos) (word). Comte is usually regarded as the first Western sociologist, with [[Ibn Khaldun]] having preceded him by nearly 400 years in the East. His emphasis on the interconnectedness of different social elements was a forerunner of modern [[functionalism (sociology)|functionalism]]. Nevertheless, like many others from his time, certain elements of his work are regarded as eccentric and unscientific, and his grand vision of sociology as the centrepiece of all the sciences has not come to fruition.  
 
During his lifetime, Comte's work was sometimes viewed skeptically because he elevated Positivism to a religion and named himself the Pope of Positivism. Comte had earlier used the term '[[social physics]]' to refer to the positive science of society, but because others, most notably the Belgian statistician [[Adolphe Quetelet]], had begun to use that term in a different meaning, Comte felt the need to invent the [[neologism]] sociology, a [[hybrid word]] derived from the Latin 'socius' (friend) and the Greek λόγος (logos) (word). Comte is usually regarded as the first Western sociologist, with [[Ibn Khaldun]] having preceded him by nearly 400 years in the East. His emphasis on the interconnectedness of different social elements was a forerunner of modern [[functionalism (sociology)|functionalism]]. Nevertheless, like many others from his time, certain elements of his work are regarded as eccentric and unscientific, and his grand vision of sociology as the centrepiece of all the sciences has not come to fruition.  
  
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*''Physique sociale'' (Social Physics)
 
*''Physique sociale'' (Social Physics)
 
*''Sociologie'' (Sociology)
 
*''Sociologie'' (Sociology)
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==Notes==
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<references/>
  
 
==Bibliography==
 
==Bibliography==
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* [http://www.igrejapositivistabrasil.org.br/english/ Positivist Church of Brazil]
 
* [http://www.igrejapositivistabrasil.org.br/english/ Positivist Church of Brazil]
 
* [http://membres.lycos.fr/clotilde/ Auguste Comte and Positivism]
 
* [http://membres.lycos.fr/clotilde/ Auguste Comte and Positivism]
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* [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/comte.htm Auguste Comte, 1798-1857]
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* [http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/INDEX.HTML#comte Comte on Dead Sociologists' Index]
  
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{{Credit1|Auguste_Comte|79108341|Positivism|83200602|}}
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{{Credit1|Auguste_Comte|79108341}}
 

Revision as of 19:58, 23 October 2006

Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte (full name Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte) (January 17 (recorded January 19), 1798 - September 5, 1857) was a French thinker known as the "father of sociology," coining the term sociology. He is remembered for being the first to apply the scientific method to the social world.

Life

He was born in Montpellier, in southwestern France. After attending school there, Comte began studies at the École Polytechnique in Paris. There he learned about French republican ideals and progress. In 1816, the École closed for re-organization. Comte did not reapply on its reopening, choosing to continue his studies at the medical school in Montpellier. While in Montpellier, he was unable to relate with his Catholic and Monarchist family and left again for Paris, surviving through odd jobs.

In August of 1817 he became a student and secretary for Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, who brought Comte into intellectual society. Comte began work on the philosophy of positivism. He published a manifesto on this philosophy entitled Plan de travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour réorganiser la société (1822) (Plan of scientific studies necessary for the reorganization of society). Comte, however, was unable to obtain an academic position and depended on financial help from sponsors and friends. In 1824, Comte left Saint-Simon because of untenable differences.

In 1826, Comte spent time in mental health hospital.

He married Caroline Massin, but divorced in 1842. Comte was known as an arrogant, violent and delusional man and the marriage did not last. In the time between their marriage and 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 September 5th, 1857 and is buried at the famous Cimetière du Père Lachaise.

Work

Comte is famous for his grand universal laws.

The first is the 'law of three phases.' It states that society has gone through three phases: Theological, Metaphysical, and Scientific. Comte gave the name "Positive" to the last of these because of the polysemous connotations of the 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. By the "Metaphysical" phase, he was not referring to the Metaphysics of Aristotle or any other ancient Greek philosopher, but for Comte 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 higher plane than the authority of any human ruler to countermand, although said rights were not referenced to the sacred beyond mere metaphor. The Scientific phase came into being after the failure of the revolution and of Napoleon. The purpose of this phase was for people to find solutions to social problems and bring them into force despite the proclamations of human rights or prophecy of the will of God. In this regard he was similar to Karl Marx and Jeremy Bentham. For its time, this idea of a Scientific phase was considered progressive, although from a contemporary standpoint it is too derivative of classical physics and academic history.

The other universal law he called the 'encyclopedic law'. This law led to 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). 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. Comte's ambition, however, was unique.

He coined the word "altruism" to refer to what he believed to be a moral obligations 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).

Positivism

Positivism is a philosophy developed by Auguste Comte (widely regarded as the first true sociologist) in the early nineteenth century that stated that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. This view is sometimes referred to as a scientist ideology, and is often shared by technocrats who believe in the necessary progress through scientific progress. As an approach to the philosophy of science deriving from Enlightenment thinkers like Pierre-Simon Laplace (and many others), positivism was first systematically theorized by Comte, who saw the scientific method as replacing metaphysics in the history of thought, and who observed the circular dependence of theory and observation in science. Comte was thus one of the leading thinkers of the social evolutionism thought. Brazil's national motto, Ordem e Progresso ("Order and Progress") was taken from Comte's positivism, also influential in Poland. Positivism is the most evolved stage of society in anthropological Evolutionism, the point where science and rational explanation for scientific phenomena develops. Marxism and predictive dialectics is a highly positivist system of theory.

Comte's positivism should not be confused with Logical positivism, which originated in the Vienna Circle in the 1920s. Logical positivism is a school of philosophy that combines positivism—which states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge—with a version of apriorism—the notion that some propositional knowledge can be had without, or "prior to", experience.

The key features of positivism as of the 1950s, as defined in the "received view"[1], are:

  1. A focus on science as a product, a linguistic or numerical set of statements;
  2. A concern with axiomatization, that is, with demonstrating the logical structure and coherence of these statements;
  3. An insistence on at least some of these statements being testable, that is amenable to being verified, confirmed, or falsified by the empirical observation of reality; statements that would, by their nature, be regarded as untestable included the teleological; (Thus positivism rejects much of classical metaphysics.)
  4. The belief that science is markedly cumulative;
  5. The belief that science is predominantly transcultural;
  6. The belief that science rests on specific results that are dissociated from the personality and social position of the investigator;
  7. The belief that science contains theories or research traditions that are largely commensurable;
  8. The belief that science sometimes incorporates new ideas that are discontinuous from old ones;
  9. The belief that science involves the idea of the unity of science, that there is, underlying the various scientific disciplines, basically one science about one real world.

Positivism is also depicted as "the view that all true knowledge is scientific,"[2] and that all things are ultimately measurable. Because of its "close association with reductionism,"[2] positivism and reductionism involve the view that "entities of one kind... are reducible to entities of another,"[2] such as societies to numbers, or mental events to chemical events. It also involves the contention that "processes are reducible to physiological, physical or chemical events,"[2] and even that "social processes are reducible to relationships between and actions of individuals,"[2] or that "biological organisms are reducible to physical systems."[2]

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 theory. 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. (Comte, A. (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.)

Legacy

During his lifetime, Comte's work was sometimes viewed skeptically because he elevated Positivism to a religion and named himself the Pope of Positivism. Comte had earlier used the term 'social physics' to refer to the positive science of society, but because others, most notably the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet, had begun to use that term in a different meaning, Comte felt the need to invent the neologism sociology, a hybrid word derived from the Latin 'socius' (friend) and the Greek λόγος (logos) (word). Comte is usually regarded as the first Western sociologist, with Ibn Khaldun having preceded him by nearly 400 years in the East. His emphasis on the interconnectedness of different social elements was a forerunner of modern functionalism. Nevertheless, like many others from his time, certain elements of his work are regarded as eccentric and unscientific, and his grand vision of sociology as the centrepiece 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.

Major Publications

  • Cours de philosophie positive (Introduction to Positive Philosophy)
  • Philosophie première (First Philosophy)
  • Physique sociale (Social Physics)
  • Sociologie (Sociology)

Notes

  1. ↑ Hacking, I. (ed.) 1981. Scientific revolutions. - Oxford Univ. Press, New York.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Alan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, [Eds] The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, London: Harper-Collins, 1999, pp.669-737

Bibliography

  • Henri Gouhier, La vie d'Auguste Comte, Gallimard, 1931 ;
  • Jean Delvolvé, Réflexions sur la pensée comtienne, Félix Alcan, 1932 ;
  • Henri Gouhier, La jeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme, tome 1 : sous le signe de la liberté, Vrin, 1932 ;
  • Henri Gouhier, La jeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme, tome 2 : Saint-Simon jusqu'à la restauration, Vrin ;
  • Henri Gouhier, La jeunesse d'Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme, tome 3 : Auguste Comte et Saint-Simon, Vrin, 1941 ;
  • Henri Gouhier, Oeuvres choisies avec introduction et notes, Aubier, 1941 ;
  • Georges Canguilhem, « Histoire des religions et histoire des sciences dans la théorie du fétichisme chez Auguste Comte », Études d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences, Vrin, 1968 ;
  • H.S. Jones, ed., Comte: Early Political Writings, Cambridge University Press, 1998;
  • Angèle Kremer-Marietti, Le projet anthropologique d'Auguste Comte, SEDES, 1980, réédition L'Harmattan, 1999 ;
  • Angèle Kremer-Marietti, L'anthropologie positiviste d'Auguste Comte, Lib. Honoré Champion, 1980 ;
  • Angèle Kremer-Marietti, Entre le signe et l'histoire. L'anthropologie positiviste d'Auguste Comte, Klincksieck, 1982, réédition L'Harmattan,1999 ;
  • Angèle Kremer-Marietti, Le positivisme, Coll."Que sais-je?", PUF, 1982 ;
  • Angèle Kremer-Marietti, Le concept de science positive. Ses tenants et ses aboutissants dans les structures anthropologiques du positivisme, Méridiens Klincksieck, 1983 ;
  • Pierre Macherey, Comte. La philosophie et les sciences, PUF, 1989 ;
  • Gertrud Lenzer, Auguste Comte: Essential Writings (1975), New York Harper, Paperback, 1997 ;
  • Raquel Capurro, Le positivisme est un culte des morts : Auguste Comte, Epel, 1999 (traduit en français en 2001) : l'étude la plus récente sur la vie d'Auguste Comte, la vision sans complaisance d'une psychanalyste de l'école de Lacan ;
  • Auguste Comte, Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, Part I (1855), translated by Harriet Martineau, Kessinger Publishing, Paperback, 2003 ; Also available from the McMaster Archive for the History of Economic Thought, Volume One Volume Two Volume Three
  • Pierre Laffitte (1823-1903): Autour d'un centenaire, in Revue des Sciences et des Techniques en perspective, 2ème série, vol. 8, n°2, 2004, Brepols Publishers, 2005 ;
  • Zeïneb Ben Saïd Cherni, Auguste Comte, postérité épistémologique et ralliement des nations, L'Harmattan, 2005 ;
  • Mary Pickering, Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography, Cambridge University Press (1993), Paperback, 2006 ;

External links

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