The Law of three stages is the corner stone of Auguste Comte’s approach. Comte’s ideas relating to the law of three stages reveal that man is becoming more and more rational and scientific in his approach by gradually giving up speculations, imagination etc. He has shown that there is a close association between intellectual evolution and social progress. The law of three stages is the three stages of mental and social development. It is the co-ordination of feeling, thought and action in individuals and society. There are three important aspects of our nature. Such as our feelings, our thought and our actions.
Our feelings: The emotions and impulses which prompt us.
Our thought: Which are undertaken in the service of our feelings but also helps to govern them.
Our actions: Which are undertaken in the service of our feelings and thought. For the continuity and existence of society there must be some order of institutions, values, beliefs and knowledge which can successfully corelate the feelings, thought and activity of its members. In the history of mankind
— during which the social order bringing these elements into relation with each other has been worked out
— three types of solution, three stages of development can be distinguished.
According to Comte, each of our leading conceptions-each branch of our knowledge passes successively through different theoretical conditions:
1. The Theological or fictitious,
2. The Metaphysical or abstract,
3. The Scientific or positive.
Comte considered his law of Three stages based upon belief in social evolution to be the most important. There has been an evolution in the human thinking, so that each succeeding stage is superior to and more evolved than the preceding stage. It can hardly be questioned that Comte
’ s law of three stages has a strong mentalist or idealistic bias. He co-related each mental age of mankind with its characteristic accompanying social organisation and type of political dominance. This law appeared in, the year 1822 in his book Positive
Philosophy.
The Theological or Fictitious stage:
The theological stage is the first and it characterised the world prior to 1300. Here all theoretical conceptions, whether general or special bear a supernatural impress. At this level of thinking there is a marked lack of logical and orderly thinking. Overall the theological thinking implies belief in super natural power.
This type of thinking is found among the primitive races. In theological stage, all natural phenomena and social events were explained in terms of super natural forces and deities, which ultimately explaining everything as the product of God
’ s will. This stage is dominated by priests and ruled by military men.
Human mind is dominated by sentiments, feelings and emotions. Every phenomenon was believed to be the result of immediate actions of super-natural beings. Explanations take the form of myths concerning spirits and super natural beings.
Man seeks the essential nature of all beings, first and final causes, origins and purposes of all effects and the overriding belief that all things are caused by super natural beings. Theology means discourse in religion.
Religion dominates in this state of development. This state is characterised by conquest. The theological
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military society was basically dying. Priests were endowed with intellectual and spiritual power, while military exercised temporal authority.
It has three sub-stages:
(i) Fetishism:
‘
Fetish
’
means inanimate and
‘ ism
’
means philosophy. This is a philosophy which believes that super natural power dwells in inanimate object. Fetishism as a form of religion started which admitted of no priesthood. When everything in nature is thought to be imbued with life analogous to our own, pieces of wood, stone, skull etc. are believed to be the dwelling place of super natural powers, as these objects are believed to possess divine power.
But too many fetishes created confusion for people. Hence they started believing in several gods. Thus arose polytheism.
(ii) Polytheism:
‘
Poly
’
means many. So the belief in many Gods is called polytheism. Human being received variety or diversity of natural phenomena. Each phenomenon was kept under the disposal of one God. One God was believed to be in charge of one particular natural phenomenon. In polytheism, there is an unrestrained imagination person the world with innumerable Gods and spirits. People created the class of priests to get the goodwill and the blessings of these gods. The presence of too many gods also created for them mental contradictions. Finally they developed the idea of one God, i.e. monotheism.
(iii) Monotheism:
It means belief in one single God. He is all in all. He controls everything in this world. He is the maker of human destiny. Monotheism is the climax of the theological stage of thinking. The monotheistic thinking symbolizes the victory of human intellect and reason over non-intellectual and irrational thinking. Slowly feelings and imaginations started giving place to thinking and rationality. In monotheism a simplification of many gods into one God takes place, largely in the service of awakening reason, which qualifies and exercises constraint upon the imagination.
In theological stage, soldiers, kings, priests etc. were given respect in the society. Everything was considered in terms of family welfare. Love and affection bonded the members of a family together. In this stage social organisation is predominantly of a military nature. It is the military power which provides the basis of social stability and conquest which enlarges the bounds of social life.
(a) Progress is observable in all aspects of society: physical, moral, intellectual and political.
(b) The intellectual is the most important. History is dominated by the development of ideas leading to changes in other areas.
(c) Auguste Comte says on the
“
Co-relations
”
between basic intellectual stages and stages of material development, types of social units, types of social order and sentiments.
Metaphysical or Abstract Stage:
The metaphysical stage started about 1300 A.D. and was short lived roughly till 1800. It forms a link and is mongrel and transitional. It is almost an extension of theological thinking. It corresponds very roughly to the middle Ages and Renaissance.
It was under the sway of churchmen and lawyers. This stage was characterised by Defence. Here mind presupposes abstract forces.
‘
Meta
’
means beyond and physical means material world. Supernatural being is replaced by supernatural force. This is in form of essences, ideas and forms. Rationalism started growing instead of imagination.
Rationalism states that God does not stand directly behind every phenomenon. Pure reasoning insists that God is an Abstract being. Under metaphysical thinking it is believed that an abstract power or force guides and
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determines the events in the world. Metaphysical thinking discards belief in concrete God. It is characterised by the dominance of
“ ratiocination.
”
In metaphysical stage speculative thought is unchecked by any other principle. Human body was considered to be the spark of divinity. This kind of thinking corresponded with the legal type of society; and law, lawyers and churchmen dominated the society. Law remained under the control of the state.
The Positive or Scientific stage:
Finally in 1800 the world entered the positivistic stage. The positive stage represents the scientific way of thinking. Positive thought ushers in an industrial age. The positive or scientific knowledge is based upon facts and these facts are gathered by observation and experience. All phenomena are seen as subject to natural laws that can be investigated by observations and experimentation.
The dawn of the 19th Century marked the beginning of the positive stage in which observation predominates over imagination. All theoretical concepts have become positive. The concept of God is totally vanished from human mind. Human mind tries to establish cause and affect relationship. Mind is actually in search of final and ultimate cause.
The scientific thinking is thoroughly rational and there is no place for any belief or superstition in it. This stage is governed by industrial administrators and scientific moral guides. At this stage of thought, men reject all supposed explanations in terms either of Gods or essences as useless.
They cease to seek
‘ original causes
’
or
‘ final ends
’
. This stage is dominated by the entrepreneurs, technologists etc. Unit of society was confined to the mankind as a whole, vision of mind was broad and there is no parochial feeling. Kindness, sympathy etc. to the cause of humanity prevailed.
This is the ultimate stage in a series of successive transformations. The new system is built upon the destruction of the old; with evolution, come progress and emancipation of human mind. Human history is the history of a single man, Comte, because the progress of the man mind gives unity to the entire history of society. For Comte, all knowledge is inescapably human knowledge; a systematic ordering of propositions concerning our human experience of the world.
Corresponding to the three stages of mental progress; Comte identified two major types of societies. The theological-military society which was dying, the scientific-industrial society which was being born during his life time. Here the main stress is on the transformation of the material resources of the earth for human benefit and the production of material inventions. In this positive or scientific stage the great thought blends itself with great power.
Criticisms:
Comte’s law of three stages have been criticized by different philosophers and sociologists.
(i) According to Bogardus, Comte failed to postulate a fourth mode of thinking, i.e. socialized thinking, a system of thought which would emphasize the purpose of building the constructive, just and harmonious societies.
Bogardus also says, Comte however, should be credited with opening the way for rise of socialized thinking.
(ii) According to Prof. N.S. Timasheff, Comte
’ s law of three stages could not stand the test of facts. He opines,
“
Neither the later approaches (metaphysical and scientific) wholly supersedes the religious approach; rather there has been accumulation and often admixture of the three
”
.
(iii) C.E. Vaughan has said,
“
But its foundation is purely negative and destructive. It is powerless to construct and when credited with the ability to do so, it brings forth nothing but anarchy and bloodshed.
”
POSITIVISM
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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 metaphysical.
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.
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Characteristics Of Positivism
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.
Social Statics and Social Dynamics
The study of social statics and dynamics are the two fundamentals of Comte’s study of the organic phase or social stability . The study of social statics and dynamics are not two distinct classes of facts but are two components of a theory. These studies are not separate but are complementary to each other as static is the study when society is in equilibrium and dynamics is the study of evolution which is a slow and steady process.
This slow and steady process can only occur during the phase in which the society is in equilibrium and not disequilibrium or critical phase. Despite the fact that it seemed desirable for methodological and heuristic purposes to separate the study of statics and dynamics, in empirical reality they were correlative. Comte believed that social structures could not be reduced to the properties of individuals. Rather, social structures
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are composed of other structures and can be understood only as the properties of, and relations among, these other structures.
Social Statics and Social Dynamics
Comte considers Sociology into two Theoretical Aspects; Social Statics and Social Dynamics. Social static focuses on how order is maintained in the society and social dynamic focuses on how society changes over time.
Comte separated social statics from social dynamics. Social statics are concerned with the ways in which the parts of a social system (social structures) interact with one another, as well as the functional relationships between the parts and to the social system as a whole. Comte therefore focused his social statics on the individual, as well as such collective phenomena as the family, religion, language, and the division of labor.
Comte placed greater emphasis on the study of social dynamics, or social change. His theory of social dynamics is founded on the law of the three stages; i.e., the evolution of society is based on the evolution of mind through the theological, metaphysical, and positivist stages. He saw social dynamics as a process of progressive evolution in which people become cumulatively more intelligent and in which altruism eventually triumphs over egoism. This process is one that people can modify or accelerate, but in the end the laws of progressive development dictate the development of society. Comte’s research on social evolution focused on Western
Europe, which he viewed as the most highly developed part of the world during his times.
This distinction between social statics and social dynamics is one of his lasting contributions to sociology. His aim was to create a naturalistic science of society, which would explain the past development of mankind and predict its future course.
Social Statics
Comte separated social statics from social dynamics. Social statics are concerned with the ways in which the parts of a social system (social structures) interact with one another, as well as the functional relationships between the parts and to the social system as a whole. Comte therefore focused his social statics on the individual, as well as such collective phenomena as the family, religion, language, and the division of labor.
Social statics is a branch of social physics that deals with the fundamental laws of the social order and the equilibrium of forces in a stable society, It is an approach to sociology focusing on the distinctive nature of human societies and social systems in abstract rather than empirical terms.
It is the study of social systems as they exist at a given time. that examines human societies as they exist in a certain time that is relative to the level of development.
Comte defined social statics as the study of social structure, its elements, and their relations. He first analyzed
“individuals” as the Elements of social structure. Generally, he viewed the individual asa series of capacities and needs, some innate and others acquired through participation in society. He did not view the individual as a .
“true social unit”; indeed, he relegated the study of the individual to Biology—an unfortunate oversight because it denied the legitimacy of psychology as a distinct social science. The most basic social unit, he argued, is “the family.” It is the most elementary unit, from which all other social units ultimately evolved:
Comte believed that social structures could not be reduced to the properties of individuals. Rather, social structures are composed of other structures and can be understood only as the properties of, and relations among, these other structures. Comte’s analysis of the family then moves to descriptions of its structure—first the sexual division of labor and then the parental relation. The specifics of his analysis are not important because they are flawed and inaccurate.
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Main Features of Social Statics
It is concerned with the present structure of the society. Social Statics refers to the study of the conditions and pre-conditions of social order.
It studies the issues of social stability and social order.
It studies the current laws, rules and present conditions of the society. It observes how these laws and rules are affecting the present society.
It investigates the law of action and reaction of the different parts of the social system.
It is concerned with the study of major institutions, which preserve the social order. For example, family; it occupies an important position in social structure. It provides the base for the social order and progress of the society.
Individual, family and social combinations are three levels of society. Family is the smallest and basic unit of sociology.
Factors of Social Statics:
Auguste Comte refuses to place individuals as the base of the society. It is erroneous to derive man’s social tendencies out of his utilitarian considerations as it makes the existence of social state impossible. He places family at the base of society and allows resizing it if necessary to a couple. Family curbs the egoistic nature of a person to make him adaptable to the society this makes it the base of a social feeling causing stability.
According to his thought of collective organism he places families at the level of an element, classes and caste of a tissue and cities and towns of an organ. Aware of the limitations of such analogy Comte concluded them by stating language, religion and division of labour as the unifying or binding forces of society.
He finds language, religion and division of labour as the three key factors for the stability of the body social
According to Comte, there are three factors of social statics. They are;
Language; Language is the “easiest and common way of communication”, making it an essential tool for binding people closely to each other in a community. Language is a common mode of communication between generations. It helps impart the future generations with the knowledge and skills of the older generation, providing it with a base to progress on. It is the means of storing thoughts and culture for proceeding generations. Without a common language, attaining solidarity and social order is not possible.
Religion; Religion compensates the weaknesses of language by binding the society on the basis of a few common beliefs, acting as a “positive guide”. It ties the society by morality not letting it fall apart because of the disparities among peopleIt provides the guidance for behaviour and it is the root of social order.
Division of Labor; labor binds the society together on basis of “similarity of classes” but is feared of distancing men from a larger mass as they are more driven towards their personal interests over the societies. Men in this stage become more conscious of their personal needs and feebly relate them to the needs of society It is essential for the success of the state cooperation as it creates interdependence among the people in the society.
In presenting this analysis, Comte felt that he had uncovered several laws of social statics because he believed that differentiation, centralization of power, and development of a common morality were fundamentally related to the maintenance of the social order.
Far more important is the view of structure that he implied: social structures are composed of substructures and develop from the elaboration of simpler structures.
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Social Dynamics
Social dynamics is a branch of social physics that deals with the laws, forces, and phenomena of change in society ,it is an approach to sociology focusing on the empirical studies of societies and social systems in the processes of change in years gone by. The processes and forces of change at work in any social group.. Social dynamics is a mathematically inspired approach to analyses societies, building upon systems theory and sociology.
Social dynamics looks at all of the things that can change a social group. It is the study of the ability of a society to react to inner and outer changes and deal with its regulation mechanisms. It deals with the forces in society that provide for change and or conflict., and with those aspects of social life that pattern institutional development and have to do with social change
Comte placed greater emphasis on the study of social dynamics, or social change. For the dynamical view is not only the more interesting . . . , but the more marked in its philosophical character, from its being more distinguished from biology by the master-thought of continuous progress, or rather of the gradual development of humanity.
Social dynamics studies the “laws of succession,” or the patterns of change in social systems over time.
His theory of social dynamics is founded on the law of the three stages; the evolution of society is based on the evolution of mind through the theological, metaphysical, and positivist stages.
He saw social dynamics as a process of progressive evolution in which people become cumulatively more intelligent and in which altruism eventually triumphs over egoism. This process is one that people can modify or accelerate, but in the end the laws of progressive development dictate the development of society.
Main Features of Social Dynamics
1. Dynamics begin when the functions of the social institutions are altered or changed. It begins with the study of the process of social changes. Therefore, it is concerned with the matter of social progress.
2. Social dynamics refers to the pattern of the revolutionary progress in which the sequence of the development is necessary and inevitable. The term ‘Progress’ refers to the orderly development of the society, which are according to the natural law. Hence, the order and progress or statics and dynamics are co-related to each other.
3. According to Comte, social dynamics describe the successive and necessary stages in the development in the human mind and the society. Moreover, it is natural that the social systems, such as institutions are interrelated and interdependent, so they can make a harmonious whole.
4. Further, he opined that the social dynamics should depend on the historical perspectives in order to study the process of social change and progress. Thus, the social dynamics are found in all the aspects of the society, such as physical, moral and intellectual. However, the intellectual is the most important.
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