Auguste Comte

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," who coined the term sociology. He is remembered for being the first to apply the scientific method to the social world.

Life

Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte was born in Montpellier, in southwestern France. After attending school there, he 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 his 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 irreconcilable differences.

In 1825, he married Caroline Massin, a woman he had known for several years. Comte was known as an arrogant, violent, and delusional man and the marriage did not last. In 1826, Comte spent time in a mental health hospital suffering a mental breakdown. They finally divorced in 1842. 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 changed Comte's view of emotion and intellect. He loved her passionately, but she resisted and maintained only a platonic relationship. After her death in 1846 his 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).

Auguste Comte died in Paris on September 5th, 1857 and was buried at the famous Cimetière du Père Lachaise.

Work

Auguste Comte is famous for his grand universal laws. He also 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). Comte is also known for his biological metaphor of humankind.

Method of Inquiry

Comte believed scientists should rely on observation, experimentation, comparison, and the historical method. Comte believed all observations had to be connected to preliminary theories or else observers would not know what they were looking at. Experimentation is difficult in the social sciences but Comte believed "experimentation takes place whenever the regular course of the phenomenon is interfered with in any determinate manner." Comte argued that comparisons between human and animal society would reveal useful hints about man's true nature. He also extended the idea of comparison to those between humans. These three forms of inquiry all relied on a foundation of history.

Positivism

Positivism is the philosophy developed by Auguste Comte, 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. Comte is known to have said, "Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy?"

His view is sometimes referred to as a scientist ideology, and is often shared by technocrats who believe that essential progress occurs 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. Comte also observed the circular dependence of theory and observation in science. Comte was thus one of the leading thinkers of the social evolutionism thought. 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 also said, "The dead govern the living," which is likely a reference to the cumulative nature of positivism and the fact that our current world is shaped by the actions and discoveries of those who came before us.

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.

Comte’s explanation of the Positive philosophy introduced the important relationship between theory, practice, and human understanding of the world. In 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.

The Law of Three Phases

Comte stated each department of knowledge passes through three stages. These three stages are the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive, or scientific.

The Theological phase was seen from the perspective of nineteenth century France as preceding the Enlightenment, in which man's place in society and society's restrictions upon man were referenced to God. Comte believed all primitive societies went through some period in which life is completely theo-centric. From there, societies moved to the Metaphysical phase.

By Metaphysical phase, Comte was not referring to the Metaphysics of Aristotle or any other ancient Greek philosopher. For Comte, metaphysics was rooted in the problems of French society before 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. Here, Comte seems to have been an influence for Max Weber's theory of democracy in which societies progress towards freedom. Weber wrote of oligarchies having more freedom than tyrannies, and democracies having more freedom than oligarchies. Comte's belief that universal rights were inevitable seem to be foretelling of Weber's theory.

The Scientific or Positive 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 appears derivative of classical physics and academic history. Again, it seems as if Weber co-opted Comte's thinking. Weber believed that man was progressing further than ever with science, but believed that this was the downfall of humankind as man loses sight of humanity itself in favor of technical progress.

Comte believed this law to be applicable to societies across the world and throughout time, although the validity of such a belief is debatable.

Comte gave the name Positive to the last of these because of the polysemous connotations of the word. Positive can refer both to something definite and to something beneficial. Comte saw sociology as the most scientific field and ultimately saw it as a quasi-religious one at that, which are evidence of his intentions with the word positivism.

Encyclopedic Law

Comte's other universal law is 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 area was prominent in the nineteenth century and not unique to Comte. Comte's ambition, however, was unique. Comte believed sociology to be on the top of this hierarchy. Although it was higher than the other sciences, sociology was still dependent on, and could not exist without, the others.

Comte envisioned an ideal society in which positivism and sociology reigned supreme and sociological-scientific priests would rule on the basis of reason. Later in life, Comte saw himself as a prophet of this new religion.

Legacy

During his lifetime, Comte's work was 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 centerpiece of all the sciences has not come to fruition.

His emphasis on a quantitative, mathematical basis for decision-making, however, has remained influential. 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 such approaches as Total Quality Management and Continuous Quality Improvement, which describe a continuous 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) (1830)
• Astronomique et physique (Astronomy and Philosophy) (1835)
• Chimique et biologique (Chemistry and Biology) (1838)
• Partie dogmatique de la philosophie sociale (The Social Philosophy Dogma) (1839)
• Cours de politique positive (Introduction to Positive Politics) (1815-54)

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

• Find-A-Grave profile for Auguste Comte
• Positivist Church of Brazil
• Auguste Comte and Positivism
• Auguste Comte, 1798-1857
• Comte on Dead Sociologists' Index

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