Lesson 2
Auguste Comte
Robert Wonser
SOC 368 – Classical Sociological Theory
Spring 2014
August Comte’s Life
 (Isidore) Auguste Marie Marie Francois-Xavier
Comte
(1798-1857)
 Brilliant but mischievous student.
 Was expelled for leading a rebellion against a
teacher.
 1817: Comte began his association with ClaudeHenri de Saint-Simon.
 1825: Comte married Caroline Massin, a
registered prostitute in Paris (they separate in
1841).
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Comte’s Life
1826: Comte has a nervous breakdown
and attempted suicide twice.
Wrote the six volumes of the Course of
Positive Philosophy (1830, 1835, 1838,
1839, 1841, 1842).
1838: Began practicing “cerebral hygiene”
1844: Comte married again to Clotilde de
Vaux (she dies in 1846)
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Comte’s Life
Wrote the System of Positive Polity (18511854).
Created a religious cult based on his
ideas. He called himself the “high priest of
humanity.”
1857: Comte dies after looking at some
shriveled flowers given to him years earlier
by Clothilde.
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Comte’s Key Intellectual Influences
Charles Montesquieu (1689-1755)
The Spirit of Laws – society is a “thing.”
Social Laws
Hierarchies of Laws – less to more deterministic
Development of Sequence of Socio-Political
Structures (republic – monarchy – despotism)
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Comte’s Key Intellectual Influences
 Jacques Turgot (1727-1781)
“The Advantages which the Establishment of Christianity
Has Procured for the Human Race.”
(each stage of human history creates the conditions for
the next stage)
“Philosophical Review of the Successive Advances of
the Human Mind.”
(movement towards a perfect individual and society)
Development through three universal stages (hunters,
shepherds, and husbandmen) occurs because of
economic transformations.
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Comte’s Key Intellectual Influences
Jean Condorcet (1743-1794)
Emphasized the importance of science in the
perfection of the human race.
Societies develop through ten stages.
The history of human progress can be mapped
through science.
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Comte’s Key Intellectual Influences
 Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825)
During the years 1817-1824 his ideas overlapped with
Comte’s to a great extent.
Focus on a “positive” science.
Observations to Laws to Improved Social Organization.
Hierarchy of sciences:
 Astronomy
 Physics
 Chemistry
 Biology
“Terrestrial Morality”
Work eventually became overly moralistic and was
rejected by Comte.
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The Sociological Theory of Auguste
Comte
1822: “Plan of the Scientific Operations
Necessary for Reorganizing Society.”
Positive science – positivism.
the search for invariant laws of the universe in both
the natural and social world.
In his version, laws can be derived from doing
research on the social world and/or from theorizing
about that world.
Also meant it as 'the opposite of negativism'.
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Comte’s Take on Science
Comte was a realist, there is a real world
out there and that the task of the scientist
is to discover it and report on it (it’s
‘natural laws’)
Discovered sociology in 1839.
Two ways to do this: doing research and
theorizing
Which was he more a fan of?
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Comte’s Take on Science
 Explicitly identified three basics methods for
sociology:
 Observation – should be directed to some
theory
 Experiment – better suited to other sciences
than sociology
 Comparison – 3 subtypes:
Us to other animals,
compare societies in different parts of the world,
compare different stages of different societies at
different points in time (Comte’s favorite), historical
research
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1822: “Plan of the Scientific Operations
Necessary for Reorganizing Society.”
 Social Physics – sociology was a science on par
with, physics.
 Law of Three Stages – 3 basic stages that the
human mind, people through maturation
process, all branches of knowledge and the
history of the world, his own mental illness all
pass successively through these stages. In all,
humans search for explanations of the world
around us.
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Law of Three Stages
The Theological Stage – first and
necessary stage for the rest. Mind is
searching for essential nature of things
(origin and purpose), concludes
supernatural forces (gods) are at work.
Fetishism – worship of an object, like a tree
Polytheism – many gods
Monotheism – one god to explain everything
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Law of Three stages
The Metaphysical Stage – least
important stage as it serves as a
transitional stage.
Basically, we look to nature to explain
everything, as in ‘it was an act of nature’
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The Law of Three Stages
 The Positivistic Stage – final and most
important stage for Comte. All we can know are
phenomena and relations among them, not their
essential nature and purpose. We drop
nonscientific explanations and instead look for
invariable laws that govern everything.
 Concrete laws come inductively from empirical
research, abstract laws derived deductively from
theory.
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Positivism
 Comte meant this in a couple of ways:
 Positivism as a science committed to the
search for invariant laws (through sense
perceptions, empiricism) and …
 The opposite of negativism, the chaos and
disorder that characterized much of Europe at
the time (French Revolution, intellectual anarchy,
political corruption, etc.). Why did intellectual
anarchy exist then?
Coexistence of “incompatible” philosophies—
theological, metaphysical and positivistic.
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Who Will Support Positivism?
Despite not believing humans have much
control over the outcome of progress, he
planned much for the emergence of
positivism.
Upper classes were too self involved
The working class – work frees them up to think
during the day
Women – best representation of key positivistic
idea, “victory over selfish affections.”
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The Sociological Theory of Auguste
Comte
 The Course of Positive Philosophy
Theory should be more axiomatic (rules accepted as
true) than causal (x causes y).
Search for a small number of fundamental properties of
the social world.
Empirical observations should be guided by theory and
not the other way around.
Comte’s Sociological Methodology:
 Observations
 Experimentations
 Comparisons
 Historical Analysis
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The Sociological Theory of Auguste
Comte
The study of society as an organic whole,
as a social organism.
Social Statics (social structure and social
pathology)
1) Interdependence of parts.
2) Centralization of authority.
3) Development of a common morality (culture).
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The Sociological Theory of Auguste
Comte
 Social Dynamics (social change) – study of how
societies change and evolve.
 “theory of the natural progress of human society”
 Little humans can do here since natural laws
govern the process.
 Law of Three Stages:
Theological
Metaphysical
Positivistic
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The Sociological Theory of Auguste
Comte
Sociology was to be the “queen science”
in a hierarchy of sciences.
It would be the most complex science to
reach the positivistic stage.
Comte felt Western European societies
were on the verge of getting here but
weren’t in his lifetime.
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The Sociological Theory of Auguste
Comte
Comte’s Hierarchy of Sciences:
Mathematics
Astronomy
Physics
Biology (physiology)
Chemistry
And the pinnacle…
Sociology
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Role of the Individual in Comte’s Theory
Individuals as imperfect, dominated by the
“lower” forms of egoism rather than
“higher” more social forms of altruism.
Like Durkheim after him, he believed
society was needed to restrain our selfish
impulses and orient us to the social group.
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Family according to Comte
Family is the “fundamental institution”
The family, not the individual is the
building block of Comte’s sociology.
Families are “nothing but our smallest
society”
Acts as the school of society.
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Religion According to Comte
Family is most pivotal but religion is the
most important according to Comte.
“the universal basis of all society”
Two major functions it serves:
1) regulate individual life by subduing egoism
and elevating altruism
2) fostering social relationships among people,
providing for the emergence of other large scale
social structures.
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Major Contributions and What he is
remembered for today:
 August Comte:
 coined the term “sociology”
 Defined sociology as a positivistic science
 helped to establish sociology as an intellectual
tradition in France
 Articulated methods for sociological study
 “law of three stages” – theological, metaphysical,
positivistic
 sociology as a “social physics”
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Major Contributions and What he is
remembered for today:
 Differentiated between social statics and social
dynamics, or social structure and social change
 Focus on macrosociology and the study of
collective phenomena.
 Clearly stated his beliefs about unchecked
human nature (egoistic).
 Dialectical view of macro structures
 Interested in integrating theory and practice.
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Comte’s weaknesses
Theory was overly influenced by his own
life.
Comte fell increasingly pout of touch with
the real world.
Fell out of touch with the intellectual world.
Failed as a positivist, both in empirical and
theoretical work.
Very little actual sociology in his work.
Made no original contributions.
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Comte’s Weaknesses
Whatever sociology he contributed was
distorted by a primitive organicism in
which he saw strong similarities between
the workings of the human and social
body.
positivism was the cure for the social diseases
Developed theoretical tools then imposed
them onto whatever he was studying.
Like his own mental illness…
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Last of Comte’s Weaknesses
His “outrageous” and “colossal” selfconceit led him to make ridiculous
blunders.
His romanticized view of the working class and
women as agents of a positivist revolution,
cerebral hygiene.
Sacrificed what he stood for with his turn
to a positivist religion.
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