French philosopher; founder of positivism and father of sociology as a scientific discipline. Disciple of Saint-Simon; proposed to reorganize society on scientific bases following the dual revolution (French and industrial).
Key Concepts
- Law of Three Stages: each science and each society passes through three historical stages:
- Theological: explanation by supernatural agents (fetishism → polytheism → monotheism)
- Metaphysical: explanation by forces and abstract essences
- Positive (scientific): explanation by observable and measurable laws — the only valid stage
- Positivism: only knowledge based on observable facts and verifiable relations is legitimate; rejection of metaphysics and theology as immature
- Hierarchy of Sciences: mathematics → astronomy → physics → chemistry → biology → sociology (the most complex and most recent)
- Sociology: positive science of society — Social Physics; divided into statics (order, structure) and dynamics (progress, change)
- Religion of Humanity: late phase — Comte proposed replacing God with Humanity as the object of worship, with rituals and positivist calendar (Positive Politics)
Influenced by
- Saint-Simon — social reorganization through science and industrialism
- Condorcet — historical progress and human perfectibility
- Montesquieu — laws in social history
- French Enlightenment — reason and science
Influenced
- Émile Durkheim — scientific sociology
- John Stuart Mill — methodology and positivism (with reservations)
- Twentieth-century logical positivism (distant reading)
- Brazil — the motto “Order and Progress” on the flag is directly Comtean
Works
Course in Positive Philosophy (6 vols., 1830–1842); Discourse on the Positive Spirit (1844); System of Positive Politics (4 vols., 1851–1854).
See also
Nineteenth-Century Philosophy