AUGUSTE

COMTE
ANIS QILAH BINTI KAMARUDIN 012015091223
TO UNDERSTAND A
SCIENCE, IT IS NECESSARY
TO KNOW ITS HISTORY

AUGUSTE COMTE
BACKGROUND
Born January 19, 1798, in Montpellier, France
EARLY LIFE
Comtes father, Louis, a government tax official.
His mother, Rosalie (Boyer) Comte, were both monarchist and devout
Roman Catholics
After attending the Lycee Joffre and then University of Montpellier, Comte
was admitted to the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.
This Polytechnique was notable for its adherence to the French ideals of
republicanism and progress.
Started in August 1817-1824, he wrote several essays published under
Saint-Simon
 In between 1826-1842, he published six volumes of his COURS

In this work, Comte argued that like the physical wold, society operated
under its own set of laws.
 1844, Comte become involve with Clotilde de Vaux, a French aristocrat and
writer.
Comte wrote the SYSTEM OF POSITIVE POLITY
Created a religious cult based on his ideas. He called himself the high
priest of humanity
 He continue attempting to unify history, psychology and economics
through the scientific understanding of society.
His work widely influenced by Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill and George Eliot.
Comte died of stomach cancer in Paris on September 5, 1857.
Though self-centered and egocentric, Comte devoted himself to the
betterment of society.
HIS WORKS
(1830-42) Course in Positive Philosophy

(1844) A Discourse on the Positive Spirit

(1848) A General View of Positivism

(1851-54) Subjective Synthesis

(1856) Religion of Humanity

POSITIVISM
In philosophy, generally, any system that confines itself to the data of
experience and excludes a priori or metaphysical speculations. More
narrowly, the term designates the thought of the French philosopher
Auguste Comte (17981857).

Comtes Positivism was posited on the assertion of a so-called law of the

three phases (or stages) of intellectual development.

There is a parallel between the evolution of thought patterns in the entire

history of man, on the one hand, and in the history of an individuals
development from infancy to adulthood, on the other.
 Comte favored positivism : a way of understanding based on science

Seeing the sociology based on three stage :

-The theological stage, in which thought was guided by religion
-The metaphysical stage, a transitional phase.
-The scientific stage
 THEOLOGICAL STAGE
In this stage human beings rely on supernatural agencies to explain what they
can't explain otherwise.
The Theological, which is the original and spontaneous form of thought, regards the
facts of the universe as governed not by invariable laws of sequence, but by single
and direct volitions of beings, real or imaginary, possessed of life and intelligence.
In the infantile state of reason and experience, individual objects are looked upon
as animated.
The next step is the conception of invisible beings, each of whom superintends and
governs an entire class of objects or events.
The last merges this multitude of divinities in a single God, who made the whole
universe in the beginning, and guides and carries on its phaenomena by his
continued action, or, as others think, only modifies them from time to time by
special interferences
 METAPHYSICAL STAGE
In this stage human beings attribute effects to abstract but poorly
understood causes.
Metaphysical, accounts for phenomena by ascribing them, not to volitions
either sublunary or celestial, but to realized abstractions.
In this stage it is no longer a god that causes and directs each of the
various agencies of nature: it is a power, or a force, or an occult quality,
considered as real existences, inherent in but distinct from the concrete
bodies in which they reside, and which they in a manner animate.
Instead of Dryads presiding over trees, producing and regulating their
phenomena, every plant or animal has now a Vegetative Soul.
 SCIENTIFIC/POSITIVE STAGE
Human beings now understand the scientific laws that control the world.
In the Scientific stage, which came into being after the failure of the
revolution and of Napoleon, people could find solutions to social problems
and bring them into force despite the proclamations of human rights or
prophecy of the will of God.
Science started to answer questions in full stretch. In this regard he was
similar to Karl Marx and Jeremy Bentham. For its time, this idea of a
Scientific stage was considered up-to-date, although from a later
standpoint it is too derivative of classical physics and academic history.
Comte's law of three stages was one of the first theories of social
evolutionism.
CONCLUSION
ED
OY
TR D.
S
E AC E
S D P L
I E TE
IN G S R O M
TH T I C
O L I TE
N T I U S
N G
THANK YOU