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Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2010

Mary Pickering
Affiliation:
San José State University, California
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Summary

Only he who has learned everything is nowhere a stranger; robbed of his fortune and without friends, he is yet the citizen of every country, and can fearlessly despise the changes of fortune.

Lorenzo Ghiberti, Secondo Commentario

This second volume of Comte's biography has examined approximately ten years of his life, from 1842 to 1852, focusing on the transformation of his positive philosophy into a religious and political movement. It has shown that he became more confident about his philosophy, renaming the Cours de philosophie positive the Système de philosophie positive and more regularly referring to this belief system as “positivism” to compete with the other isms of the age. At the same time, he was not content with the achievement represented by this great work, which set the foundations of not only a new philosophy but also sociology and the history of science. He saw his life's work as incomplete. The regeneration of society necessitated more than a scientific and philosophical treatise; it required a moral revolution that would usher in a political revolution. Like Saint-Simon, Comte believed that politics reflected current morality and that both ultimately expressed the reigning philosophy of the times. The Cours, in his mind, laid the foundation of a moral system based on demonstrable principles. It even outlined his ideas of a new spiritual power that would help regenerate society through education. But he worried that the Cours might be misunderstood, adding to the “positivity” or scientism of the day, which neglected social needs.

Type
Chapter
Information
Auguste Comte
An Intellectual Biography
, pp. 581 - 586
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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References

Temple, Thomas M., “L'Effet Comte: Recycling French Social Theory,” Journal of Classical Sociology 4 (2004): 365Google Scholar
Pecora, Vincent P., Secularization and Cultural Criticism: Religion, Nation, and Modernity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 6–17, 23Google Scholar
Harrington, Anne, Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)Google Scholar

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  • Conclusion
  • Mary Pickering, San José State University, California
  • Book: Auguste Comte
  • Online publication: 06 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511596551.012
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  • Conclusion
  • Mary Pickering, San José State University, California
  • Book: Auguste Comte
  • Online publication: 06 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511596551.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Mary Pickering, San José State University, California
  • Book: Auguste Comte
  • Online publication: 06 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511596551.012
Available formats
×