CRITIQUE OF COMTES LAW OF THREE STAGES

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2012.

Comtes Law of Three Stages

Imbued with the immanentist sensist phenomenalism of David Hume (1711-1776),1 the
positivist Auguste Comte2 (1798-1857) is best known for his law of three stages: for him, there
are three successive and ascending stages or phases of a human individuals intellectual
development, namely, the theological stage, the metaphysical stage, and, finally the positive or
scientific stage. For Comte, the intellectual development of mankind as a whole would likewise
follow these three successive and ascending stages or phases. Explaining Comtes law of three
stages, Copleston writes that in its historical development through the centuries the human mind
passes through three main stages or phases, the theological, the metaphysical and the positive.
These three stages in the intellectual development of mankind have their analogues however in
the life of the individual man as he passes from infancy through adolescence to manhood. When
contemplating his own history does not each of us recollect that he has been
successivelytheologian in his infancy, metaphysician in his youth, and physicist in his
maturity?3 Unless he dies prematurely, the individual normally passes from infancy to maturity
by way of adolescence. And these three phases are reflected in the intellectual development of
mankind as a whole. If the race continues to exist, the phases or stages of mental growth succeed
one another in a certain pattern because man is what he is. In this sense it is necessary,
hypothetically necessary, we might say.4

1
In his The Unity of Philosophical Experience, tienne Gilson writes: At the origins of Comte, as at the origins of
Kant, stands Hume(. GILSON, The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Ignatius, San Francisco, 1999, p. 199).
Hume, says Comte, is my principal precursor in philosophy(A. COMTE, The Catechism of Positivism, J.
Chapman, London, 1858, p. 7), and now we know why his Essays are among the few philosophical books listed in
the catalogue of the Positivist Library(. GILSON, op. cit., p. 214).
2
Studies on Comte: E. LITTR, Auguste Comte et la Philosophie Positive, Hachette, Paris, 1864 ; M. UTA, La Loi
des Trois Etats dans la Philosophie dAuguste Comte, Alcan, Paris, 1928 ; J. S. MILL, Auguste Comte and
Positivism, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1961 ; R. FLETCHER, Auguste Comte and the Making of
Sociology, Athlone Press, London, 1966 ; E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD, The Sociology of Auguste Comte: An
Appreciation, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1970 ; T. R. WRIGHT, The Religion of Humanity: The
Impact of Comtean Positivism on Victorian Britain, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986 ; P.
MACHEREY, Comte: La Philosophie et les Sciences, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1989 ; G. HARP,
Positivist Republic: Auguste Comte and the Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865-1920, Penn State Press,
Pennsylvania, 1995 ; J. MUGLIONI, Auguste Comte, Kim, Paris, 1995 ; R. SCHARFF, Comte After Positivism,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995 ; J. GRANGE, La Philosophie dAuguste Comte: Science, Politique,
Religion, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1996 ; D. M. HESSE, George Eliot and Auguste Comte, Peter
Lang, Frankfurt, 1996 ; A. WERNICK, Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2001 ; M. BOURDEAU and F. CHAZEL (eds.), Auguste Comte et lIde de Science de lHomme,
LHarmattan, Paris, 2002 ; A. PETIT (ed.), Auguste Comte: Trajectoires Positivistes, 1798-1998, LHarmattan,
Paris, 2003 ; M. BOURDEAU, J.-F. BRAUNSTEIN, and A. PETIT (eds.), Auguste Comte Aujourdhui, Kim,
Paris, 2003 ; J.-C. WARTELLE, LHeritage dAuguste Comte: Histoire de Eglise Positiviste, LHarmattan, Paris,
2005 ; M. GANE, Auguste Comte, Routledge, London, 2006 ; B. KARSENTI, Politique de lEsprit: Auguste Comte
et la Naissance de la Science Sociale, Hermann, Paris, 2006 ; M. PICKERING, Auguste Comte: An Intellectual
Biography, 3 vols, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006 (vol. 1), 2009 (vols. 2 and 3).
3
A. COMTE, Cours de philosophie positive, second edition, Paris, 1864, I, p. 11.
4
F. COPLESTON, A History of Philosophy, Bk. 3, vol. 9, Image Doubleday, New York, 1985, pp. 77-78.

1
 Comtes Theological Stage

In Comtes theological stage man gives an explanation of natural phenomena by having

recourse to supernatural causes fantastically conceived under anthropomorphic forms. The
theological stage is the first condition of the human spirit. Faced with the phenomena of nature,
man at first aimed to know them in themselves, or in their nature and causes (absolute object).
But the fact remained mysterious in this early stage, and man sought for a transcendental
explanation in supernatural beings, as the gods. In so doing, man did not use reason as much as
imagination. Three traits qualify this stage of experience: an absolute object, a transcendental
explanation, and the predominance of imagination over reason. This stage reached its peak in
Catholicism, which admirably synthesized all its supernatural explanations by the concept of a
unique God, directing all things by his decrees.5 The first stage, the theological, is understood
by Comte as being that phase of mans mental development in which he seeks the ultimate
causes of events and finds them in the wills of personal, superhuman beings or in the will of one
such being. It is, in general, the age of the gods or of God. Subdivision is however required. In
the infancy of the race man instinctively tried to explain phenomena, the real causes of which
were unknown, by ascribing to objects passions and affects analogous to those of human beings.
In other words, man endowed physical objects with life, passions and will, in a vague manner.
This animistic mentality represented what Comte described as the stage of fetishism. In the
course of time however the animating forces immanent in objects were projected externally in
the form of the gods and goddesses of polytheism. Later on the deities of polytheistic religion
were fused in the concept of the one God of monotheism. These three successive sub-stages of
fetishism, polytheism and monotheism constitute together the theological stage.6

Comtes Metaphysical Stage

In the metaphysical stage the same phenomena are explained by having recourse to
abstract rational principles using concepts such as substance, cause, essence, etc. The
metaphysical stage adds only an accidental perfection to the preceding. It replaces the
mythological divinities and the divine decrees by metaphysical entities, as causes, substances,
faculties, and so on. Here again one finds an absolute object as the point of study, and the
predominance of imagination over reason; the explanation, however, is no longer transcendent,
but immanent. The apogee of metaphysical reasoning lies in pantheism, in which nature uniquely
synthesizes all metaphysical entities.7 The second stage is described by Comte as the
metaphysical stage. The description however is apt to give rise to misunderstanding. For what
Comte has in mind is the transformation of personal deities or of God into metaphysical
abstractions, not, for instance, the theistic metaphysics of medieval thinkers such as Aquinas or,
later, of Bishop Berkeley. In the metaphysical stage, that is to say, instead of explaining
phenomena in terms of the activity of a divine will the mind has recourse to such fictional ideas
as ether, vital principles, and so on. The transition from the theological to the metaphysical stage
takes place when the concept of a supernatural and personal Deity is succeeded by the concept of

5
F. J. THONNARD, A Short History of Philosophy, Descle, Tournai, 1956, p. 755.
6
F. COPLESTON, op. cit., pp. 78-79.
7
Ibid.

2
all-inclusive Nature and when explanations are sought in terms of abstract entities of one kind or
another, such as force, attraction and repulsion.89

Comtes Positive Stage

In Comtes last stage, the positive phase, man has come of age and searches for scientific
explanations by means of laws which are sufficient to explain all phenomena that appear to us.
The positive stage is opposed to the two preceding in three ways. It abandons any absolute in
order to be content with the relative, or an object proportioned to reason: the facts of experience
and their relations or laws. Moreover, there is no longer an immanent, nor a transcendent
explanation, for reason, achieving its majority, knows now to consider, positively, in a nature,
that which is attainable. This explains the increasing predominance of observation over
imagination.10

The third stage is the positive stage, namely that of the mature scientific outlook or
mentality. Here there is no attempt to find ultimate explanatory causes or to discuss the real but
unobservable inner essence of things. The mind concerns itself with phenomena or observed
facts, which it subsumes under general descriptive laws, such as the law of gravitation. These
coordinating descriptive laws make prediction possible. Indeed, the mark of real positive
knowledge is precisely the ability to predict and so, within limits, to control. Positive knowledge
is real, certain and useful.11

Maritains Critique of Comtes Law of Three Stages

In his critique of Comtes law of three stages Jacques Maritain writes that Comte set
forth as a principle and codified one of the most serious errors of the nineteenth century. The
foolish mistake was to think that the mode of thinking proper to the sciences of phenomena
annihilated the mode of thinking proper to metaphysics, and more generally, to philosophy as an
independent way of knowing; in other words, that the second mode of thinking was illusory, only
the first constituting a valid approach to reality; in short, that instead of being ranged on several
different levels, where they coexist in the human mind, the various types of knowledge are all
spread out on the same level, where they compete with each other, because, finally, to give an
account of phenomena is the sole and unique object of theology, of metaphysics, of philosophy
of nature, and of the science of phenomena: this was an extraordinary begging of the question,
for the question was precisely to know if there isnt something to be known beyond the
phenomenon. As a result, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology would necessarily
eliminate every other knowledge of reality, whether it be obtained by philosophy of nature,
metaphysics or theology: and sociology was not only to be constituted as the science of social
phenomena, it was necessarily to eliminate every other science of man, whether pertaining to

8
In his De Motu Berkeley attacked the idea that there are realities or entities corresponding to abstract terms such as
attraction, force or gravity. The terms, Berkeley maintained, had their uses as mathematical hypotheses; but it
was a mistake to think that they stood for corresponding abstract entities. The view which Berkeley attacked is a
good example of what Comte meant by metaphysics, when he spoke of the metaphysical stage in the development of
human thought.
9
F. COPLESTON, op. cit., p. 79.
10
F. J. THONNARD, op. cit., p. 755.
11
F. COPLESTON, op. cit., p. 79.

3
theology, to metaphysics, to psychology, or to authentic ethics: man was but a sociological
phenomenon, or a grouping of sociological phenomena bound by laws. Every philosophical
knowledge of things, distinct from the knowledge which the sciences give of them, was
henceforth void. Such was the clearest result of the law of the three stages.12

Merciers Critique of Comtes Law of Three Stages

Mercier gives us a critique of Comtes law of three stages, writing: Comte endeavored
to establish his law of the three stages on various considerations: (1) The general history of the
sciences shows that this law really exists. All knowledge has gone through or is still going
through these three stages of human thought. (2) The historical argument is corroborated by an
argument from analogy. The life of every man reveals in its course three successive stages.
Childhood marks that of credulity and theological belief. Youth is a prey to metaphysical
illusions. Mature age turns a man to the physical order. (3) Finally there is an intrinsic argument
to show the necessity of this law. The human mind feels a need of connecting, by some theory or
other, the facts which come under its experience. Along with this mental need there also
discloses itself, in the early stages of rational development, the inability to discover a theory
suggested by facts observed. If, therefore, a man wanted to find scope for the employment of his
intellectual activity, he had to invent from the information at hand some interpretation that would
serve to unify the phenomena he observed: theology served him this purpose. This prepared the
way to the metaphysical theory of nature, whence humanity has been enabled to arrive at this
stage of positive science, which is the final stage.

Today there are not many of the followers of Comte who hold by this celebrated law.
Indeed, it is not very difficult to show by various historical facts that it is false. In the days of old
the Greeks were by no means unfamiliar with the study of natural phenomena. Though Aristotle
was a giant in metaphysical speculations, he was also the compiler of all the observations both in
physics and politics of his times. And in mediaeval times the West, engrossed in theological
speculations, has given us, besides such metaphysicians as St. Thomas and Duns Scotus, a
physicist of the caliber of Roger Bacon.

Again, it is no less false to maintain that each individual passes through the three stages
of theology, metaphysics and the positive sciences. The child by no means dreams of explaining
the phenomena that attract his attention by the agency of divine beings. In this sense and it is
Comtes he is not at all naturally inclined to religion. Youth, in general, shows very little bent
for metaphysical abstractions. On the contrary we meet with powerful minds for whom
philosophical studies are the final stage of a career which has been devoted chiefly, if not
entirely, to the study of the physical sciences. Such, for example, was Helmholz, who was first a
physiologist and then devoted himself to philosophy after passing an intermediary stage of
mathematical study. So too Kant wrote a universal history of the nature of the heavens, a sketch
on some considerations concerning fire, various studies on earthquakes, on the theory of winds,
and an essay on headaches, before he reached the final stages of his thought in which he
elaborated his two Critiques.

12
J. MARITAIN, Moral Philosophy, Charles Scribners Sons, New York, 1964, ch. 11, no. 8.

4
 Again, Comtes logical proof of the necessity of the law of the three stages derives all
its value from his empirical proof. Isolated from history, it would be a petitio principii. For he
makes the assertion that the first hypotheses which the human mind constructed were necessarily
theological. But on what grounds does he base his assertion? It is true that the observer of nature
does read some theory into his facts, that he constructs some hypothesis concerning the nature of
the connections binding the facts together and directs his observations and experiments to the
verification of his hypothesis; it is true that this premature theory, this provisionary hypothesis,
may be theological, and indeed, as Spencer remarks, certain unaccustomed anomalous
phenomena may well have led primitive man to adopt some theory of this kind: but there is
nothing to warrant our saying that recourse was had to such an explanation as a general rule.

Moreover, Comte takes it for granted, without offering adequate proof, that the positive
stage of knowledge is the final and perfect one, and yet this is an essential part of his law of the
three stages. What apart from historical considerations is the proof he adduces? That, on the
one hand, positive explanations cannot co-exist with theological or metaphysical ones, since they
are mutually exclusive; and that, on the other hand, positive science cannot precede or be
inferior, since the human mind is subject to a law of indefinite progress and retrogression is
impossible. But is this an adequate proof? Why may not the perfection of knowledge, the final
stage, be a synthesis of all, theological, metaphysical and positive? And what grounds are there
for the assertion that progress is indefinite and that it is impossible for the human race to fall
back? Either this is a mere assertion without proof, and in this case his pretended law of the three
stages is merely a corollary of a non-proven postulate; or it is an attempt at proof based on the
historical grounds that everywhere and always theological and metaphysical explanations have
given way to positive ones: in which case what was claimed as a logical proof is found to be
really an empirical one, and apart from historical observation has no value at all.

It is interesting, moreover, to note that for the foundation of his positivism Comte had to
have recourse to a necessary and universal law, namely the necessity of the mind to bind facts
together by a theory, in order to prove precisely from this that there are no such things as
necessary laws but only associations that are more or less constant. A positivist can pronounce
about what is, he cannot speak of what ought to be.

Though as a matter of fact the law of the three stages has been abandoned by the
majority of philosophers, even by the positivists themselves, it has yet left a heritage of
considerable influence. Many thinkers who are engrossed in the study of the natural sciences and
confine themselves to the use of experimental methods, consider every metaphysical or religious
inquiry as vain and illusory. The method of the positive sciences they make to consist in a
complete disregard for any such speculation. And their method, they assure us, has proved its
value. To it we are indebted for those marvelous conquests in the realms of the unknown which
have enlarged mans horizon both in knowledge and in action. And to Comte, it is said, belongs
the glory of all these modern achievements; to him as the founder of positivism we must be
grateful for revealing the method of observation which has exercised such a powerful influence
on the various branches of the sciences.

But is it really true that the credit is due to the positive method extolled by Comte for the
progress in the sciences which is the object of our admiration and the source of abundant

5
blessings? This eulogy of positivism is due in great part to the confusion which Comte created
between the positive method and the experimental method, which is the real source of the
discoveries of modern times. This confusion is pure sophistry, as Pasteur showed in his
celebrated Inaugural Address to the French Academy. Comte put the observer face to face with
nature and left him to consider the manifold antecedents of a phenomenon in the complex
conditions in which they find their play. This method, by not allowing an inquiry into what
antecedent amongst them is the cause of the phenomenon to be explained, enables us merely to
pass, more or less legitimately, from what has been to what can be. The experimental method,
which alone is of value in the physical sciences, starts out, on the contrary, from a directive idea
which the experimenter endeavors to verify by his study of the phenomena. He varies artificially
the conditions under which the phenomenon appears; he sets aside certain antecedents, and
modifies the intensity of action in certain others. The positivistic method leaves the observer
passive, with the result that his conclusions are subject to the conditions under which the
phenomenon he is studying presents itself; the experimental method leads him actively to search
for the laws that natural agents obey.

Finally we must remember that the dream of a positive science supplanting philosophy
in every respect has already passed out of fashion. H. Poincar, Duhem, Le Roy and other writers
on the critique of the sciences have done much to humble the proud claims made by scientists.
Metaphysical, ethical and theological speculations have again taken their proper place beside and
above the experimental sciences, which fail to satisfy the ultimate questionings of the human
mind.13

Coffeys Critique of Comtes Positivism and Law of Three Stages

Peter Coffey critiques Comtes sensist and positivist theory of knowledge and law of
three stages in the first volume of his Epistemology as follows: Positivism as a Theory of
Knowledge. The Sensist or Empiricist view of the human mind, by reducing all knowledge to
sense experience, and by ignoring or misinterpreting the process of conception, the process of
forming genuinely abstract and universal concepts, leads, as we have just seen, to nominalism. In
an earlier chapter (chap. v.) we saw how this same attempt to account for all knowledge by
association of the individual facts and events of sense experience involved a misinterpretation
and an equivalent denial of the absolute necessity and universality of judgments and principles of
the ideal order. According to this teaching, all judgments, and therefore all knowledge, since it
is in judgments that knowledge is embodied, would consist of associations of past individual
sense experiences in groups or classes according to their sensible similarities, and in feelings of
anticipation of the future recurrence of such similar experiences.

Observing and classifying individual things and events in time and space; noting their
uniformities of co-existence and sequence; and thus discovering the laws of phenomena,
laws in the sense of actually observed uniformities, but not at all in the sense of any intelligible
real principles or causes of such uniformities, these cognitive functions and their products
would mark the highest efforts and the highest goal attainable by the human mind in the way of
knowledge or science. The material alone, in its time-and-space manifestations, as related to

13
D. MERCIER, A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy, vol. 2, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London,
1922, pp. 18-22.

6
sense and revealing itself in sense consciousness, as appearing to sense, as phenomenal, is the
only object to which human knowledge can attain. It is only such judgments as refer to actual or
possible sense experiences that can contain knowledge. They are true only in so far as they are
verifiable by sense experience; their universality is limited by, and relative to, actual and possible
sense experience; as universals, they are only empirical generalizations,14 anticipations of future
experiences, and, therefore, cannot be absolutely true but only more or less probable. The
necessary character of such judgments is in no way absolute or ontological, but is only a
psychological expression of the cumulative mental effect of some actually experienced
uniformity. Causality is only sequence of time-and-space phenomena; and the necessary
causality of Nature is only the actually experienced uniformity of its phenomena plus the mental
anticipation of the continuation of such uniformity. Thus all genuine knowledge, all science and
philosophy, are concerned only with positive, i.e. perceived or perceivable, things and events,
and their time-and-space connexion and correlation within our positive sense experience. Hence
the title Positivism, as descriptive of the constructive side of this general view of the scope of
knowledge.15

Again, all the so-called knowledge hitherto believed to have been brought to light by
metaphysics, knowledge of the inner natures or essences of sense phenomena, knowledge of
the suprasensible and supposed intelligible aspects of these phenomena, knowledge of their
first origin and final destiny, knowledge of a supposed suprasensible domain of being,
knowledge of the soul and of God, all this is chimerical and illusory. About the reality or
unreality of such suprasensible objects of our conceptions, judgments and inferences, we can
know nothing. For reason or intellect, of which these are the functions, being itself merely the
mental faculty of elaborating, comparing, connecting, arranging, and systematizing sense data,
cannot possibly transcend, or penetrate beyond, sense data, to furnish us with any genuine insight
into what may lie within or behind or beyond such data. Hence the title Agnosticism, as
descriptive of the negative side of the system.

Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who was the founder of this system in France, as John
Stuart Mill was its leading representative in England, thought to support it by an appeal to
history for a justification of his conception of the three states. According to his reading of
history the human mind in its development has passed successively through three stages: the
theological, in which it explains natural phenomena by the interference of personal agents
supernatural beings; the metaphysical, in which it accounts for phenomena by metaphysical
entities, occult causes, and scholastic abstractions such as substances, forces, faculties and the
like; finally, the positive period, at last happily arrived, in which man abandons such futile
investigations and confines himself to formulating the laws which connect phenomena.16

This general theory of knowledge, superficial and one-sided as it is, suggests many
obvious criticisms. The following will suffice:

I. The fundamental principle of Positivism, put forward as if it were an axiom, namely,

that the sensible alone is knowable, that the suprasensible is unknowable, is not an axiom but

14
Science of Logic, ii., 247.
15
Cf. JEANNIRE, Criteriologia, pp. 540-554.
16
MAHER, Psychology, pp. 279-80; cf. Science of Logic, ii., 224, 228.

7
an inevident postulate, a gratuitous assumption which is neither demonstrated nor demonstrable,
but is in fact false. That the individuals earliest knowledge is apprehension of concrete, material
sense data, that the concrete data of external perception and introspection furnish the materials
whence we derive all our knowledge, must indeed be admitted (71). But that these can be
apprehended by the mind only in their concrete, individualized condition; that the mind cannot
consciously apprehend as objects of knowledge, in and through these data, modes of being that
are divested of the material, concrete, individualizing, time-and-space conditions which they
have in and for sense perception and sense consciousness; that it cannot infer from the reality of
sense data the reality of positively suprasensible modes of being, these contentions are neither
demonstrated nor demonstrable. And introspection shows that they are false. As has been pointed
out already (71, 72, 74, 75) the mind can apprehend, and does apprehend when it answers the
question, What is this thing? the essence or nature of reality, more or less adequately, and in
an abstract condition in which it could not possibly be grasped by sense. And it is precisely
because the mind can apprehend in this abstract condition the concrete data of sense that it can
generalize, classify, compare, reason, and make progress in knowledge. The sensist theory of
knowledge, on which positivists rely, misinterprets and misrepresents the mental process by
which we really apprehend the abstract and universal thought-object in the concrete and
individual data of sense (84).

If the principle of Positivism that the sensible alone is knowable were evident, it
would follow that being is evidently identical with corporeal being. But this is not evident, for
corporeal is an attribute not contained in the thought-object being. Being, therefore, is
apprehensible by the mind apart from corporeal: it is knowable in itself, and has an
intelligibility independent of corporeal being. As objects of the minds awareness the two
objects are not identical. Their real identity, therefore, cannot be asserted without proof. Neither,
of course, can it be asserted without proof that there are modes of real being which are not
corporeal. We do not and cannot see a priori the real possibility of an incorporeal or spiritual
domain of real being ; but neither do we see a priori its evident impossibility; nor, therefore,
have positivists any right to assert a priori the impossibility of suprasensible or metaphysical
knowledge. Such an assertion is mere gratuitous dogmatism.

In defending the possibility of a genuine metaphysical knowledge against agnosticism,

our method is to set out from the admitted facts of sense experience and introspection, and to
show, on the basis of these facts, that unless we admit the existence of a suprasensible,
immaterial, spiritual domain of reality, we not only find those facts inexplicable, but find
ourselves involved in contradictions in any and every alternative attempt to explain them. Hence,
we argue, such a domain of being really exists. But if it exists it is possible; and so the claims of
metaphysics demand a hearing: to prejudge them as inadmissible is unscientific, and positivism
does prejudge them.

We admit that our knowledge of suprasensible, intelligible objects is of a different kind

from our sense knowledge: supra sensible objects cannot be seen, or heard, or smelled, or tasted,
or touched, or pictured in imagination; they can only be thought or conceived. But apparently,
because the rational cognitive faculty of the human mind, the intellect or understanding, does not
apprehend its objects in the ways in which the corporeal, sense faculties apprehend their objects,
positivists would have us believe that the former faculty and its objects are unreal and illusory.

8
We admit, too, that since reason or intellect apprehends its proper objects, objects which are
incorporeal or immaterial only negatively or by abstraction (71): the essences or natures of
corporeal or material beings, in and through the data of sense, its concepts and judgments of
positively and really incorporeal beings do not represent intuitively and immediately, but only
analogically and discursively, the real natures of those incorporeal beings. But it is gratuitous to
deny, with positivists, that such imperfect knowledge is genuine as far as it goes (74). We admit,
finally, that whatever we claim to know about the natures or essences even of corporeal things,
whatever we know about them as substances, agents, causes; about their faculties, forces,
energies; about their contingency, their origin, their purpose, all this we know only by rational
inference from their visible behaviour in the phenomena of sense: on the principle Operari
sequitur esse; Qualis est operatio talis est natura. But while positivists deny the validity of
such inference and its results, they themselves employ it in classifying phenomena and bringing
to light the laws of phenomena: for how can we classify phenomena or formulate laws of their
conduct without knowing their natures or kinds?

II. The kindred assertion of positivists, that the human mind cannot know the Absolute
but only the relative, is another piece of dogmatism which derives any plausibility it has from its
ambiguity.17 It is meant of course to convey that we can attain to no knowledge of God, who is
the Absolute in the full and proper sense; or of any suprasensible factors of sense phenomena,
factors not apprehensible by, or related to, sense cognition. That whatever is knowable must be
referable to the mind, and that whatever is known must stand in actual relation to the mind, it
would be self-contradictory to deny. This, however, merely involves that the suprasensible
cannot be known by sense. If we understand by the relative and the absolute the sensible and the
suprasensible respectively, then we can know the absolute if we have a faculty of knowledge, viz.
intellect or reason, into relation with which the suprasensible can be brought. And as a matter of
fact it is by intellect or reason that we know the sensible as relative. We cannot know phenomena
to be phenomena unless we know them to be phenomena or appearances of something, i.e. of
some substance or substances; we cannot know them as effects unless we know them to be
effects of something, i.e. of some cause or causes. And, in general, as Maher observes,18 Reason
knows the absolute by the very fact that it cognizes the relative to be relative. Knowledge of the
relative, as such, involves as its necessary consequence, knowledge of the absolute; and not
only knowledge of the existence of an absolute, but by reasoning from effect to cause, from
operation to essence, some degree of genuine knowledge of the nature of the absolute.

III. Comtes conception of the three stages in the mental development of the human race
is a subjective and fanciful misreading of history, prompted by the needs of his own theory.19
Certain epochs have been characterized by a predominant interest in the problems of religion, or
in metaphysical problems, or in the special problems of the positive sciences of observation and
experiment, respectively. But the contention that these three preoccupations have been distinct,
successive, and mutually exclusive, is not only a discredited travesty of history: it is no less a
palpably prejudiced account of the interests, the efforts, and the aspirations of the human mind
confronted with the problems of experience. To deny that men have at all times, and by their
very nature must have, interested themselves in the three great domains of inquiry, the religious,

17
Cf. MAHER, op. cit., pp. 158-159, 280 ; cf. Ontology, 5, pp. 47-49.
18
MAHER, op. cit., p. 280.
19
Cf. MERCIER, Critriologie Gnrale, 129, pp. 323-326.

9
the philosophical, and the scientific, is no less futile than to assert that in this latest and so-called
positive epoch they will eschew religion and philosophy, to devote themselves to classifying
facts and cataloguing the laws or observed uniformities of facts.20

Verneauxs Critique of Comtes Law of Three Stages

Roger Verneaux critiques Comtes law of three stages as follows: In Comte, la legge dei
tre stati non una prova, unespressione del positivismo. Nulla infatti giustifica il privilegio
accordato allo stato positivo. Il fatto di apparire dopo gli altri non prova assolutamente che esso
sia il migliore. Il criterio cronologico ha senso solo in una teoria del progresso necessario, e a sua
volta, questa teoria ha senso solo in una metafisica razionalistica e ottimistica come quella di
Hegel. Vedere il positivismo contraddirsi cos apertamente cosa che sorprende. almeno una
teoria della conoscenza scientifica soddisfacente? Affatto. Nella sua opera intitolata De
lexplication dans les sciences, Meyerson ha provato in modo particolareggiato e, a nostro
avviso, definitivo, che la scienza, in nessun momento del suo sviluppo, conforme allo schema
positivistico. Lo scienziato non si limita mai a osservare i fenomeni e le loro leggi; egli crede alla
esistenza in s delle cose che gli appaiono e cerca le cause dei fenomeni; fa della metafisica
come respira.21

Jolivets Critique of Comtes Positivism

Rgis Jolivet critiques Comtes positivism as follows: 2 La corrente positivistica. 85

- 1. Nominalismo ed empirismo. - Il positivismo, in A. Comte, Stuart Mill, H. Spencer, non che
una forma dellempirismo fenomenistico. Nominalistico per principio, il positivismo predica una
specie di ascesi filosofica o, se si vuole, un nuovo dovere di astinenza metafisica. Esso rinuncia,
infatti (con unapparente saggezza), a cercare la soluzione dei problemi insolubili posti dalla
concezione fenomenistica delluniverso. Vi un substrato dei fenomeni, esistono cose in s
(come dice Kant), dietro le mobili apparenze? Poco importa, poich substrati e cose in s sono
del tutto inutili.

Il positivismo si presenta cos come una soluzione ai problemi posti dal kantismo e dal
fenomenismo. Ma, come vedremo, questi problemi sono gli stessi di Kant e di Hume, poich in
entrambi i casi derivano dal postulato nominalistico. Si tratta essenzialmente di spiegare l'ordine
e la regolarit dei fenomeni, senza ricorrere per nulla alla metafisica.

Come rendere conto, tuttavia, senza ricorrere a un soggetto, delle totalit organiche della
natura, dell'ordine e della regolarit dei fenomeni? E perch, rispondono i positivisti, cercare
delle spiegazioni ipotetiche e daltronde inutili? Lordine un fatto; la costanza del susseguirsi
dei fenomeni un fatto: a noi basta constatare questi fatti e generalizzarli sotto forma di leggi.
Compito della scienza solo quello di discernere i legami empirici dei fenomeni e tutta la
filosofia non serve ad altro che a intendere la scienza e ad unificarne i risultati, sul terreno
stesso dellesperienza.22

20
P. COFFEY, Epistemology, vol. 1, Peter Smith, Gloucester, MA, 1958, pp. 324-329.
21
R. VERNEAUX, Epistemologia generale, Paideia, Brescia, 1967, pp. 53-54.
22
Cfr. A. COMTE, Discours sur l'esprit positif, Parigi, 1844, 12: Avendo spontaneamente constatato l'inutilit
radicale delle spiegazioni vaghe e arbitrarie proprie alla filosofia iniziale, sia teologica, sia metafisica, lo spirito

10
 Questa argomentazione estremamente ambigua, in quanto si presenta ora come
puramente metodica, ora come realmente teoretica; questi due punti di vista dovrebbero essere
nettamente distinti.

86 - 2. Il positivismo come metodo. - Il termine di positivismo serve talvolta a designare

un metodo dinvestigazione della natura. In questordine, si dice, tutto ridotto alla ricerca delle
leggi empiriche dei fenomeni, facendosi astrazione dalle cause propriamente dette e dalle
essenze, che sono di pertinenza delle discipline metafisiche, o delle discipline religiose. Niente
da obbiettare a ci (I, 134-136) se non si pretendesse, da una parte, che questo metodo positivo
possa bastare assolutamente a se stesso, e, dallaltra, che le ricerche ulteriori della metafisica,
come le asserzioni religiose, rappresentino solo estrapolazioni azzardate e ipotesi gratuite. Il
culto del metodo positivo implica di frequente un positivismo latente, cio la credenza nella
validit esclusiva dei metodi sperimentali.

Mostreremo la falsit di questo punto di vista. Si pu comunque gi stabilire, per la

questione del metodo, che esso contraddetto dalla pratica stessa delle scienze positive. certo,
infatti, che il fisico (e il chimico, e il biologo a pi forte ragione) ben lungi dallobbedire alle
ingiunzioni di Comte. Egli cerca sempre e ovunque, scrive E. Meyerson (Essais, Parigi, 1936,
p. 140), di conoscere ci che vi al disotto dei fenomeni, cerca di conoscere ci che , la cosa, il
quid (Was). Luomo fa della metafisica allo stesso modo come respira; lo scienziato
metafisico quanto un altro, sebbene, vero, senza averne espressamente coscienza, ma cos
profondamente da poter dire che le scienze pi positive esistono e progrediscono solo sotto
limpulso del bisogno metafisico.

87 - 3. Il positivismo come dottrina. - Dal punto di vista teoretico, il positivismo si

riduce a una pura e semplice negazione del valore della metafisica, cio della ragione come
facolt dellessere intelligibile. Come tale, esso vale tanto quanto valgono i princpi che invoca.
Ora, noi sappiamo che questi princpi non sono altro che quelli del nominalismo e
dell'empirismo: tutta la realt oggettiva legittimamente affermabile, risulta ridotta a ci che
percepito o che potrebbe essere percepito dai sensi. Abbiamo discusso questi postulati e non
dobbiamo tornarvi sopra; ma possiamo osservare che questa dottrina condurrebbe alla rovina
della scienza positiva stessa.

a) La scienza e la ricerca delle cause. Abbiamo messo in evidenza, dal punto di vista
metafisico, ci che si potrebbe chiamare la metafisica degli scienziati; qui bisogna andare ancora
pi lontano e parlare della metafisica della scienza. Infatti, in relazione alla considerazione delle

umano rinuncia ormai alle ricerche assolute che convenivano solo alla sua infanzia, e circoscrive i suoi sforzi al
campo, da allora rapidamente progressivo, della vera osservazione, sola base possibile delle conoscenze veramente
accessibili, saggiamente adattate ai nostri bisogni reali. Fino ad allora, la logica speculativa era consistita nel
ragionare, in un modo pi o meno sottile, secondo principi confusi, che, non producendo alcuna prova sufficiente,
suscitavano sempre dispute senza conclusione. Essa riconosce ormai come regola fondamentale che ogni
proposizione la quale non sia strettamente riducibile alla semplice enunciazione di un fatto, particolare o generale,
non pu offrire alcun senso reale e intelligibile. I princpi di cui si vale non sono pi, essi pure, che fatti veri,
solamente pi generali e pi astratti di quelli di cui essi devono formare il legame [] In una parola, la rivoluzione
fondamentale che caratterizza la virilit della nostra intelligenza consiste essenzialmente nel sostituire ovunque,
all'inaccessibile determinazione delle cause propriamente dette, la semplice ricerca delle leggi, vale a dire delle
relazioni costanti fra i fenomeni osservati.

11
cause, al senso propriamente ontologico di questa nozione, E. Meyerson (De lExplication dans
les sciences, 1.a ed., Parigi, 1921, t. I, p. 57) ha mostrato esaurientemente che se le scienze della
natura si sforzano di stabilire le leggi funzionali (I, 126, 182), non sembra le considerino termine
ultimo delle loro ambizioni, in quanto leggi e funzioni sono evidentemente solo simboli della
causa propriamente detta, che il vero reale.

Ci si studia, scrive Meyerson (Essais, p. 41 sg.), di ridurre la ricerca della causa alla
determinazione delle condizioni del fenomeno, cio alla ricerca della legge (...). Essa sovente
contraddistinta dal fatto che si fa intervenire il concetto matematico di funzione (I, 144), che ,
infatti, la forma ideale verso cui tende la legge fisica; si finge di credere che tutto ci che
attinente alla causa si riduca o almeno debba ridursi alla determinazione di questa funzione o di
qualche particolarit relativa a questa funzione. Ora, non punto cos: la causa non pu, in
nessun caso, confondersi con la legge e con la funzione, dato che noi vediamo, nella storia della
scienza, che la ricerca della causa prosegue instancabilmente, appassionatamente e a lungo dopo
che la funzione e tutto ci che la concerne sono stati determinati a perfezione (...). Noi sappiamo
che lo spirito richiede imperiosamente cause reali per ci che esiste realmente; che, secondo
lespressione di Hartmann, solo dei pazzi potrebbero fare il tentativo di spiegazioni fisiche con
laiuto di concetti scientemente irreali. questo il motivo per cui il fisico non pu in alcun caso
ridursi ad essere un matematico e ancor meno un algebrista puro.

88 - b) Scienza e filosofia. Il positivismo, sia pure al semplice livello della scienza

sperimentale, non si pu veramente mantenere in pratica ed contraddittorio. Cos in fisica un
positivista, per essere logico, dovrebbe limitarsi a descrivere i fatti nellordine in cui appaiono e
attenersi strettamente ai fatti bruti, cio alle percezioni, quali esse sono per un osservatore
ordinario. Ora, ben evidente che il fisico, anche quello positivista, va sempre molto al di l: egli
ritiene le qualit sensibili solo come indizi di realt soggiacenti (particelle, vibrazioni, ecc.) che
non possibile percepire direttamente; egli crede a un ordine pi ampio di quello della
percezione sensibile e si sforza di ricostruirlo in un sistema in cui ci che percepibile come
immerso in ci che concepibile (I, 169-171). Se il postulato positivistico fosse strettamente
rispettato, luomo si troverebbe ridotto a constatare senza comprendere. La constatazione stessa
rimarrebbe assai imperfetta, in quanto essa implica sempre, anche al livello scientifico, un
abbozzo d'interpretazione e di spiegazione, cio lappello ad elementi che non appartengono al
campo sensibile.23

A pi forte ragione, se la scienza implica gi e mette in gioco unintera filosofia, sar

impossibile ridurre la filosofia ad essere esclusivamente una pura sintesi delle scienze positive.
In realt, oltrepassando il sapere positivo, la filosofia non fa che proseguire un movimento gi
dato nelle scienze e portare all' atto le esigenze metafisiche incluse virtualmente nellesperienza
sensibile e nelle scienze della natura. Tutto il nostro studio precedente, in logica, in cosmologia,
in psicologia, ci ha costantemente ricondotto a questa evidenza (sottolineata pi su ancora una
volta): che il meccanicismo non mai una spiegazione, ma un problema. Indubbiamente, si ha il
diritto di partire proprio dallordine della natura, considerato come un dato: quanto fanno le
scienze positive; ma una constatazione non una spiegazione. La ragione, anche nella scienza
stessa, aspira a scoprire le ragioni dell'ordine, a conoscere le cose mediante i loro princpi e le
loro cause. Per questo appunto avevamo buon fondamento nel dire (I, 13) che la metafisica
23
Cfr. A. SESMAT, Les systmes privilgis de la Physique relativiste, Parigi, pp. 401-402.

12
meno al di l del sapere positivo e sperimentale che allinterno di questo sapere stesso, sia pure
sotto forma potenziale o virtuale; essa propriamente latto di una ragione obbediente alle
esigenze intelligibili dell'essere, dato nella percezione e nella scienza.24

24
R. JOLIVET, Trattato di filosofia, vol. 4 (Metafisica I-II), Brescia, 1959-1960, nos. 85-88.

13