Full Name: Isidore Marie Auguste Francois Xavier Comte.
Born: 1798, in Montpelier (France).
Died: 1857 (Due to Stomach Cancer), in Paris (France).
Major Influences: 1. Henri de Saint-Simon.
2. Immanuel Kant’s Positivism.
Major Influenced: 1. John Stuart Mill.
2. Emile Durkheim.
3. Harriet Martineau.
4. Karl Marx.
5. Herbert Spencer.
Auguste Comte, a French Philosopher who is known as the father of
sociology. His major works are:
1. Cours
de Philosophie Positive (1830-1842) (six volumes)
2. System
de Politique Positive (1851) (four volumes)
Cours de Philosophie Positive (Course of
Positive Philosophy)
The Cours de Philosophie Positive has
six volumes, which were published from 1830 to 1842. Comte wanted to achieve
two goals through his work: first, to build a foundation for the new
discipline, ‘sociology’, while proving it as an ultimate science he
coined the term ‘social physics’. According to Comte, studying society
is a science, because just like science, experiments, observations, and
comparisons can be done.
His second goal was to coordinate all the positive
knowledge. According to him, any knowledge, which can be scientifically proven,
is positive. He arranged five fundamental sciences: Mathematics, Astronomy,
Physics, Chemistry and Biology in ascending order of their complexity.
|
Sociology |
|
Biology |
|
Chemistry |
|
Physics |
|
Astronomy |
|
Mathematics |
According to the understanding of Comte, complexity
increases from mathematics to biology, and he kept sociology at the top of it,
due to its complexity.
He has distinguished between Inorganic
Science and Social Science. The former science shows the
interaction between separate elements, whereas the social science focuses on
social statics and social dynamics. Social statics deals with the forces that
hold sciences together, and social dynamics deals with the social changes, as
society is dynamic.
System de Politique Positive (System of Positive
Polity)
Comte published the System de Politique
positive in 1851, which has four volumes. He proposed the idea of
reorganizing society through his work. System de Politique Positive has one of
the famous concepts, the Law of Three Stages: Theological Stage,
Metaphysical Stage, and Positivistic Stage.
|
Theological
Stage (before 1300) |
|
Metaphysical
Stage (1300-1800) |
|
Positivistic
Stage (1800- present) |
According to Comte, social evolution is based
on the evolution of knowledge, which leads to the next stage:
The Theological Stage: when people used to believe
that, everything is explained by the supernatural and divine forces.
The Metaphysical Stage: when people started to
understand things based on abstract notions.
The Positivistic Stage: Now, people have started
believing in scientific laws and empirical facts.
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