Comte, Auguste

Comte, Auguste (ōgüst` kôNt), 1798–1857, French philosopher, founder of the school of philosophy known as positivism, educated in Paris. From 1818 to 1824 he contributed to the publications of Saint-Simon, and the direction of much of Comte's future work may be attributed to this association. Comte was primarily a social reformer. His goal was a society in which individuals and nations could live in harmony and comfort. His system for achieving such a society is presented in his Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42; tr. The Course of Positive Philosophy, 1896 ed.). In this work Comte analyzes the relation of social evolution and the stages of science. He sees the intellectual development of man covered by what is called the Law of the Three Stages—theological, in which events were largely attributed to supernatural forces; metaphysical, in which natural phenomena are thought to result from fundamental energies or ideas; and positive, in which phenomena are explained by observation, hypotheses, and experimentation. The sciences themselves are classified on the basis of increasing complexity and decreasing generality of application in the ascending order: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and sociology. Each science depends at least in part on the science preceding it; hence all contribute to sociology (a term that Comte himself originated). A sociology developed by the methods of positivism could achieve the ends of harmony and well-being which Comte desired. Another work, Le Système de politique positive (1851–54; tr. System of Positive Polity, 1875–77), placed religion above sociology as the highest science; it was, however, a religion shorn of metaphysical implications, with humanity as the object of worship. For a modern edition of part of this work see A General View of Positivism (1957). Important among his other writings are Catechisme positiviste (1852, tr. 1858) and Synthèse subjective (1856). Published posthumously were his Testament (1884) and his letters (1902–05).

Bibliography

See F. S. Marvin, Comte, the Founder of Sociology (1937, repr. 1965).

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Comte, (Isidore-) Auguste (-Marie-François-Xavier)

Comte, drawing by Tony Toullion, 19th century; in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

(credit: H. Roger-Viollet)

(born Jan. 19, 1798, Montpellier, France—died Sept. 5, 1857, Paris) French thinker, the philosophical founder of sociology and of positivism. A disciple of Henri de Saint-Simon, he taught at the École Polytechnique (1832–42) but gave free lectures to workingmen. He gave the science of sociology its name and established the new subject on a conceptual (though not empirical) basis, believing that social phenomena could be reduced to laws just as natural phenomena could. His ideas influenced John Stuart Mill (who supported him financially for many years), Émile Durkheim, Herbert Spencer, and Edward Burnett Tylor. His most important works are Cours de philosophie positive (6 vol., 1830–42) and Système de politique positive (4 vol., 1851–54).

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Comte, Auguste 

Born Jan. 19, 1798, in Montpellier; died Sept. 5, 1857, in Paris. French philosopher; one of the founders of positivism and bourgeois sociology.

From 1817 to 1822, Comte was secretary to H. de Saint-Simon. Subsequently, he became an examiner and tutor at the École Polytechnique in Paris. Later he lived on funds collected by his followers. His main writings, which were produced during the early period of his career (up to the mid-1840’s), laid the foundation for positivism. He is most famous for his Course in Positive Philosophy (vols. 1–6, 1830–42; Russian translation, vols. 1–2, 1899–1900).

Comte considered positivism the middle road between empiricism and mysticism. In his opinion, neither science nor philosophy could or should raise the question of the causes of phenomena; they were to deal only with how things took place. Thus, Comte argued that science can know only the appearance of things, not their essence. Following Saint-Simon, he developed the idea of the three stages of the intellectual evolution of mankind and of each individual. These stages determined, in the final analysis, the entire development of society. In the first, or theological, stage all phenomena are explained on the basis of religious ideas. In the second, or metaphysical, stage essences and causal factors discovered within things replace supernatural factors in the explanation of natural phenomena. The task of this stage is a critical and destructive one that prepares for the final, positive, or scientific, stage. At this point the science of society emerges and contributes to the rational organization of society. Comte’s sociology may be divided into a social stasis that deals with the stable or “natural” factors in the existence of any social structure and a social dynamics that involves the natural laws of social development. His system devotes considerable attention to the classification of the sciences, which are placed in a hierarchy of decreasing abstractness and increasing complexity.

The basic work of the second period of Comte’s career was his System of Positive Polity (vols. 1–4, 1851–54), which is imbued with religiosity and mysticism. In Comte’s opinion, sociology is a kind of “social physics” which ought to provide the basis for a scientific politics that reconciles the principles of order and progress, restoration and revolution. Thus, sociology is a “positive morality” that is related not to the individual but to humanity. Comte announced the creation of a new “religion of humanity” whose cult and catechism he described in detail.

Comte’s sociological and political ideas were severely criticized by Marx and Engels (Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 33, p. 138; vol. 39, pp. 326–27). His positivist ideas became very popular among naturalists in the 19th century, chiefly through their exposition in the works of E. Littré (France) and the English positivists J. S. Mill and H. Spencer.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Dukh pozitivnoi filosofii. St. Petersburg, 1910. [Works and extracts] In the collection Rodonachal’niki pozitivizma, issues 2,4,5, St. Petersburg, 1910–13.

REFERENCES

Kedrov, B. M. Klassifikatsiia nauk, vol. 1. Moscow, 1961. Pages 99–141.
Kon, I. S. Pozitivizm v sotsiologii. Leningrad, 1964.
Mill, J. S. A. Comte and Positivism, 2nd ed. London, 1866.
Lévy-Bruhl, L. La Philosophie d’A Comte. Paris, 1900.
Ostwald, W. A. Comte: Der Mann und sein Werk. Leipzig, 1914.
Mauduit, R. A. Comte et la science économique. Paris, 1929.
Reiche, K. A. Comtes Geschichtsphilosophie. Tübingen, 1927.
Gouhier, H. La Vie d’A. Comte, 3rd ed. Paris, 1931.
Gouhier, H. La Jeunesse d’A. Comte et la formation du positivisme, vols. 1–3. Paris, 1933–41.
Lacroix, J. La Sociologie d’A. Comte. Paris, 1956.
Arbousse-Bastide, P. La Doctrine de l’éducation universelle dans la philosophie d’A. Comte, vols. 1–2. Paris, 1957.
Steinhauer, M. Die politische Soziologie A. Comtes. Meisenheim am Glan, 1966.

B. S. GRIAZNOV