Auguste Comte

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Auguste Comte

1798–1857

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Human thought matures from religious to abstract to scientific explanations, and society itself should be studied scientifically.

Placement

Sociology & Social Theory · Western Europe · Science, Society & History

Founder of positivism who named sociology: every science passes from a theological through a metaphysical to a positive stage; late in life he founded a “religion of humanity”.

Key ideas

Positivism
Law of three stages
Religion of Humanity

Teachers: Henri de Saint-Simon

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Influence

Influenced by 2

David Hume

influenced by
Comte’s restriction of science to laws of phenomena, renouncing the search for causes, is commonly traced to Hume’s critique of causation (Cours de philosophie positive, 1830–42). A. Comte, Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42); M. Pickering, Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography, vol. I (1993); SEP “Auguste Comte”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
David Hume › 1711–1776
Henri de Saint-Simon studied with

studied with ✓
Comte was Saint-Simon’s secretary and collaborator from 1817 until their break in 1824; his early writings show Saint-Simon’s influence. SEP “Auguste Comte”; M. Pickering, Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography I (1993)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Henri de Saint-Simon › 1760–1825

Influenced 7

Harriet Martineau

influenced
Martineau shared Comte’s view that society, like nature, follows knowable laws and condensed his Course of Positive Philosophy into an English version (1853). H. Martineau (trans.), The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (1853); How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838); SEP “Auguste Comte”
Evidence: AI draft
Harriet Martineau › 1802–1876
John Stuart Mill

influenced
Mill took up Comte’s positive method and law of three stages in A System of Logic (1843); Auguste Comte and Positivism (1865) rejected the later system as despotic. J. S. Mill, A System of Logic (1843); Auguste Comte and Positivism (1865); SEP “John Stuart Mill”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
John Stuart Mill › 1806–1873
Franz Brentano

influenced
Brentano shared Comte’s demand that philosophy use the method of natural science (‘Auguste Comte und die positive Philosophie’, 1869), but defended inner perception against him (1874). F. Brentano, “Auguste Comte und die positive Philosophie” (1869), in Die vier Phasen der Philosophie (1926); Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (1874); SEP “Franz Brentano”
Evidence: AI draft
Franz Brentano › 1838–1917
Anténor Firmin

influenced
Firmin called his reply to Gobineau a ‘positive anthropology’, using Comte’s positive method against racial classifications built on prejudice (De l’égalité des races humaines, 1885). A. Firmin, De l’égalité des races humaines: Anthropologie positive (1885); C. Fluehr-Lobban, introduction to The Equality of the Human Races (2000)
Evidence: AI draft
Anténor Firmin › 1850–1911
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk

influenced
Masaryk modelled his classification of the sciences on Comte’s (Versuch einer concreten Logik, 1887) and joined Comte’s positivism with Brentano’s empiricism and a non-confessional ethics. T. G. Masaryk, Versuch einer concreten Logik (1887); Der Selbstmord als sociale Massenerscheinung der modernen Civilisation (1881)
Evidence: AI draft
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk › 1850–1937
Émile Durkheim

influenced ✓
Durkheim took over Comte’s positive science of society but rejected the law of three stages as philosophy of history, not science (Les règles de la méthode sociologique, 1895). É. Durkheim, Les règles de la méthode sociologique (1895); A. Comte, Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42); S. Lukes, Émile Durkheim: His Life and Work (1973); SEP “Auguste Comte”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Émile Durkheim › 1858–1917
Norbert Elias

influenced
Elias opened What is Sociology? (1970) with Comte, valuing his move from a philosophical to a sociological theory of knowledge as a long-term process across generations. N. Elias, Was ist Soziologie? (1970), “Soziologie – die Fragestellung Comtes”; S. Mennell, Norbert Elias: Civilization and the Human Self-Image (1989)
Evidence: AI draft
Norbert Elias › 1897–1990

Criticism

Criticized by 6

Karl Marx

criticised by
Marx found Comte’s positivism ‘miserable compared to Hegel’ and mocked Comte’s school for making the lords of capital an eternal necessity (letter to Engels, 1866; Capital I, 1867). K. Marx, letter to F. Engels, 7 July 1866 (MEW 31); Das Kapital I (1867), chapter on co-operation, note on Comte
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Herbert Spencer

criticised by
In ‘Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte’ (1864) Spencer rejected Comte’s linear classification of the sciences and denied being his follower. H. Spencer, “Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte” (1864), appended to The Classification of the Sciences (1864)
Evidence: AI draft
Herbert Spencer › 1820–1903
Wilhelm Dilthey

criticised by
Dilthey rejected Comte’s sociology as a naturalistic metaphysics of history that forces the human sciences into the methods of natural science (Introduction to the Human Sciences, 1883). W. Dilthey, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften (1883), Book I; SEP “Wilhelm Dilthey”
Evidence: AI draft
Wilhelm Dilthey › 1833–1911
Vladimir Solovyov

criticised by
Solovyov’s master’s thesis, The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists (1874), argued that Comte’s positivism marks the exhaustion of Western abstract rationalism. V. Solovyov, Krizis zapadnoi filosofii. Protiv pozitivistov (1874)
Evidence: AI draft
Vladimir Solovyov › 1853–1900
José Vasconcelos

criticised by
Vasconcelos and the Ateneo de la Juventud rejected the Comtean positivism of Porfirian Mexico for a philosophy of emotion and beauty (lecture on Gabino Barreda, 1910). J. Vasconcelos, “Don Gabino Barreda y las ideas contemporáneas”, lecture at the Ateneo de la Juventud (1910); La raza cósmica (1925)
Evidence: AI draft
José Vasconcelos › 1882–1959
Georges Canguilhem

criticised by
Canguilhem rejected the thesis Comte took from Broussais that disease differs from health only in degree, holding that norms are set by the living being itself (1943). G. Canguilhem, Essai sur quelques problèmes concernant le normal et le pathologique (1943), part I, ch. 2
Evidence: AI draft
Georges Canguilhem › 1904–1995

Works

1830Course in Positive Philosophy
The law of three stages and the hierarchy of the sciences.

Position

Comte founded positivism: true knowledge is limited to observable phenomena and the laws that connect them. According to his law of three stages, every branch of knowledge passes from a theological stage (explanation by gods), through a metaphysical one (abstract forces and essences), to the positive or scientific stage. The sciences form a hierarchy from mathematics through astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology to the newest and most complex, for which the Course coined the name “sociology”: a science of social statics (order) and social dynamics (progress) that was to reorganise society after the upheavals of the Revolution. In the System of Positive Polity he turned this into a programme for a religion of humanity, in which Humanity, the “Great Being”, takes the place of God, with a calendar of great men, sacraments and a priesthood of scholars, under the maxim “live for others” – Comte also coined the word “altruism”. Mill, who had admired the Course, rejected this later system as despotic. Positivist churches were founded in France, England and Brazil, whose flag still bears the motto “Order and Progress”; Durkheim and the logical empiricists took up the earlier, scientific Comte.

Life & context

Auguste Comte was born in Montpellier in 1798 and entered the École polytechnique in 1814; two years later he was expelled with his fellow students when the school was temporarily closed. From 1817 to 1824 he was secretary to the social reformer Henri de Saint-Simon, until they quarrelled over the authorship of a joint work. He began a private lecture course on positive philosophy in 1826, broke down after a few sessions and attempted suicide in 1827, then completed the course as the six volumes of the Course of Positive Philosophy (1830–42). He earned his living as tutor and examiner at the Polytechnique until he lost these posts in the 1840s, after which admirers, among them John Stuart Mill, supported him. His love for Clotilde de Vaux, who died in 1846, turned him towards founding a “religion of humanity”. He died in Paris in 1857.