Auguste Compte 1798-1857
Auguste Comte 1798-1857
Student and secretary of Saint-Simon, some argue Comte influenced Saint-Simon more than Saint-Simon influenced Comte. They parted ways when Comte felt Saint-Simon cheated him out of an authorship.
First to coin term sociology- thought in terms of social physics.
Society is analogous to a biological organism.
Hard sciences model starting to dominate thinking at the time.
Positivism:
1. In Nature there are laws which can be known.
2. In Nature the causes of things cannot be known.
3. Any proposition which cannot be reduced to a simple statement of fact, special or general, can have no real or intelligible sense.
4. Only relations between facts can be known.
5. Intellectual development is the primary cause of social change.
Thought that all of societies ills could be cured by this science. Positivism would replace religion. Sociologists would be like the priests of society, running society, making all of the important decisions about what is good for us. No need for revolution, evolution will naturally occur, facilitated by the intellectual class, sociologists.
Social Statics- Existing Social Structures
Social Dynamics- Social Change
Law of the three stages
Every society will evolve in the following three step process
1. Theological Stage- before 1300. Peoples ideas are modeled on religion and the supernatural. Animism, spirits, gods.
2. Metaphysical Stage- 1300-1800. Armchair thinking predominates. Abstract philosophical speculation. People focus on nature and commonsense explanations for things.
3. Positivistic Stage- 1800- now. Belief in Science as the way to model ones ideas. One must get out of their armchair and take ideas to the real world to see if they stand up to observation, repeated trials, and the standards of science.
Mathematics, Astronomy, physics, chemistry, Biology, Sociology.
Simpler----->more difficult disciplines.
Abstract---->more fundamental disciplines.
Believed in Cerebral Hygiene.
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