Comte’s Positivism and Its

Characteristics
As a philosophical ideology and movement positivism first assumed
its distinctive features in the work of the French philosopher
Auguste Comte, who named the systematized science of sociology. It
then developed through several stages known by various names,
such as Empiriocriticism, Logical Positivism and Logical
Empiricism and finally in the mid-20th century flowed into the
movement known as Analytic and Linguistic philosophy. In its basic
ideological posture, positivism is worldly, secular, anti-theological
and anti meta-physical.

Comte’s positivism was posited on the assentation of a so-called law

of three stages of intellectual development. There is a parallel, as
Comte saw it, between the evolution of thought patterns in the
entire history of man; on the one hand and in the history of an
individual’s development from infancy to adulthood on the other.

In the first or so called theological stage, natural phenomena are

explained as the result of supernatural or divine powers. It does not
matter whether the religion is polytheistic or monotheistic; in either
case miraculous powers or wills are believed to produce the
observed events. This stage was criticized by Comte as
anthropomorphic, i.e. as resting on all too human analogies.

The Second stage called metaphysical, is in some cases merely a

depersonalized theology. The observable processes of nature are
assumed to arise from impersonal powers. The sort of fruitfulness
that it lacks can be achieved only in the third stage, the scientific or
positive stage. Hence the title of Comte’s magnum opus; the
Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte 1853 because it claims to be
concerned only with positive facts.

The task of the sciences and of knowledge in general, is to study the

facts and regularities as laws, explanations of phenomena can
consist in no more than the subsuming of special cases under
general laws. Mankind reached full maturity of thought only after
abandoning the pseudo-explanations of the theological and
metaphysical stages and substituting an unrestricted adherence to
scientific method.

In his three stages Comte combined what he considered to be an

account of the historical order of development with a logical
analysis of the leveled structure of the sciences. By arranging the six
basic and pure sciences one upon the other in a pyramid, Comte
prepared the way for Logical positivism to ‘reduce’ each level to the
one below.

He placed at the fundamental level the science that does not

presuppose any other sciences-Mathematics—and then ordered the
levels above it in such a way that each science depends upon and
makes use of, the sciences below it on the scale ; thus Arithmetic,
geometry and mechanics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology
and sociology. Each higher level science, in turn adds to the
knowledge content of the science or sciences on the levels below,
thus enriching this content by successive specialization.

Positivism is a term which designates a philosophical tendency

oriented around natural science and striving for a united view of the
world of phenomena both physical and human, through the
applications of the methods and the extension of the results
whereby the natural sciences have attained their unrivaled position
in the modern world. From the point of view of methodology the
term ‘positive’ is conceived in polemical opposition to the
metaphysical abstractions of traditional philosophy.

Philosophy of science is positivism; Positivism is more a philosophy,

method rather than a theory. It is that philosophy which preaches
that the interpretation of the world is based on human experience.
It insists on the application of scientific method of natural sciences
to the study of social world.

It deals with the application of scientific method by natural

scientists and by the sociologists in understanding human-
behaviour. The idea of positivism can be traced back to Bacon,
Berkeley, Locke and Hume. Before Comte, Saint Simon also
advocated positivism. He proposed scientific reorganization of
society and promotion of science, since he believed that progress
depended on it. The idea of positivism was present in an embryonic
form in the mind of Saint Simon and Comte expanded this idea.

Positivism brought a revolution or renaissance in the field of social

science. It combined a belief in progress and a passion for serving
humanity. It is based on the belief that a scientific analysis of
history would show the way to cure for the ills of society.

The characteristics of positivism are:

(a) Science is the only valid knowledge.

(b) Fact is the object of knowledge.

(c) Philosophy does not possess a method different from science.

(d) The task of philosophy is to find the general principles common

to all sciences and to use these principles as guides to human
conduct and as the basis of social organization.

(e) Positivism denies intuition, prior reasoning, theological and

metaphysical knowledge.

Comte used positivism as a weapon against the negative philosophy

prevalent before the French Revolution. That negative philosophy
was more concerned with emotional than practical questions.
Comte regarded such speculations as negative, since it was neither
constructive nor practical. As an alternative, Comte invented
‘positivism’ which remains concerned with the questions about how
things are in reality.

Comte’s positivism is described in several ways. One salient point is

that it is scientific. Science should not be confused with empiricisms
or mere collection of facts. Comte believed that the whole universe
is governed by natural laws and these laws could be learned through
the method of science.

Positive knowledge is based on experience and considers only real

phenomena. Comte did not deny the existence of unknown, but
positivism was no way concerned with the supernatural. Chambliss
has presented the essence of Comtean positivism in this following
words, “positivism is not fatalistic, or optimistic or materialistic. It
is concerned with the real, rather than fanciful, useful rather than
all knowledge.”
Apart from the above, there are also some other
characteristics:
1. All Scientific knowledge must be based on direct experience of a
reality or direct observation is the surest way to acquire scientific
knowledge.

2. The direct experience of a reality could be understood by La

certitute, i.e. the unity of scientific method. This implies that the
different branches of study are distinguished by their object of study
not by their method.

3. The concept of unity of scientific method requires La precise, i.e.

a common scientific goal of formulating testable theories. It also
implies that there are no value judgements in scientific enquiry.

4. The positivist view science as containing the principle of La

utilize i.e. all scientific knowledge must serve some useful purpose.
It should be used as a tool for social engineering.

5. Positive knowledge is La relative, which means that scientific

knowledge is unfinished because there is no absolute knowledge in
science. Lastly, science gives prediction and from prediction comes
action.

Normative Aspect of Positivism:

Up to the positive method Comte was highly praised as the founder
of science. Auguste Comte was a philosopher among the sociologists
and a sociologist among the philosophers; says Raymond Aron. He
had a scientific bent of mind. But unfortunately Comte’s
reformative zeal overpowered his scientism. He had to reform the
French Society. He thought that with the help of science,
reformation can be brought to the society.

He wanted to write religion and science. He turned towards religion

because he was a philosopher and a social reformist. In the
normative aspect, we may include, the concept of positive religion,
positive society. Scientific religion was between science and religion.
He founded a new religion called the “religion of humanity”. This
religion of humanity is the scientific interpretation of religion.

Religion of Humanity:
In theological stage, super natural forces were the object of worship
and God was everything. But in scientific religion, God is replaced
by humanity. Humanity will be worshipped. Humanity consists of
all those who are dead and who are living and who would be born in
future.

Comte put emphasis on those who are dead and those who had
sacrificed their life for the welfare of mankind. He told to “love
mankind.” In religion of humanity selfishness is sin; sacrifice is a
way of salvation. He puts emphasis on altruism. You must live for
others and not for yourself. Comte got the idea of religion of
humanity from Feuerbach.

Comte believed that society which was built in scientific principles

needed very badly a religion called religion of humanity. The
egoistic tendencies of mankind as evinced in previous history would
be replaced by altruism and by the command “Live for others”. Men
would be imbued with love for their fellowmen.
Comte at this stage made “Love and affection” the central points of
human life, Comte not only considered himself a social scientist, but
a prophet and founder of new religion that promised salvation for
all ailments of mankind. He made a purely social religion. Mankind
was an end in itself.

Comte was not a strict religionist as such, but he considered the

atheist “the most irrational of all theologians”. Huxley called
Comte’s religion “Catholicism minus Christianity”. Some others
criticized it as highly “egoistic religion”. A few others considered it
as Utopian in character.

Comte disregarded violent procedure and gave emphasis to

persuasion and compassion. Universal brotherhood is the end of
positive politics. According to Comte, politicians are important for
the society. But the sociologists should be allowed to form the
government.

Criticisms:
(i) Though, Comte claimed to be the father of positivism or scientific
approach; he himself was not committed to it.

(ii) Prof Timasheff opines, Comte’s sociological theories represent a

premature jump from the level of observation and inferences to the
level of theory.

(iii) According to John Stuart Mill, Comte’s religion does not stand
the test of rationalism because that can never be put into practice.

(iv) Comte’s religion was born out of his “moral intoxication”.

(v) According to Rollin Chambliss, Comte wanted to build a science
of social phenomena. But instead of doing that he struggled to
provide his projects of social reorganisation. He built a Utopia
instead of science.

Auguste Comte gave maximum importance to the scientific method.

In spite of criticisms, his insistence on positive approach, objectivity
and scientific attitude contributed to the progress of social sciences
in general.

ADDITIONAL
DEFINITION OF POSITIVISM

Positivism is a philosophical system deeply rooted in science and

mathematics. It’s based on the view that whatever exists can be verified
through experiments, observation, and mathematical/logical proof.
Everything else is nonexistent. In addition, positivists usually believe that
scientific progress will eradicate, or at least sharply reduce, the problems
facing mankind.
Positivists are almost always strong realists – that is, they believe that what
we experience as reality is really out there in the world. In other words,
they believe in objective truth. They also tend to deny the influence of
things like theoretical and cultural biases that get in the way of science.
Positivism divides all statements into three categories: true, false, and
meaningless (neither true nor false). A meaningless statement is one that
isn’t clear enough to be tested through positivistic means. For example,
“The color green sleeps angrily” is a meaningless statement. There’s no
way you could test whether or not it’s true, which means it isn’t true or
false. It’s just nonsense. This is an extreme example, of course, but many
other sentences fall into this category when their terms are not clearly
defined.
If a statement does have a meaning, then it must be either true or false. But
that doesn’t mean we necessarily know which one it is. For example,
“There are exactly 23.8762 billion domestic cats in the world” has a
definite meaning, but no one can say for sure whether it’s true or not. It
would be impossible to count all the domestic cats one by one, so no one
can verify the statement. In principle, though, it could be verified through
scientific observation – which just don’t have the actual means to carry out
the study.
Note: Despite its name, positivism has nothing to do with “positive
thinking” or optimism – it’s just a coincidence that they have similar names.