Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Early Years
- 2 The Life and Works of Saint-Simon up to 1817
- 3 Comte's First Works for Saint-Simon
- 4 Comte's Growing Independence, 1819–1821
- 5 The Fundamental Opuscule and Comte's Rupture with Saint-Simon
- 6 The Aftermath of the Rupture: The Search for Connections
- 7 Comte's Efforts to Establish Himself
- 8 Intellectual and Mental Crises
- 9 The Road to Recovery, 1828–1830
- 10 Years of Success and Confrontation, 1830–1838
- 11 Comte's Changing Psyche and Aberrant Behavior, 1838–1840
- 12 The Encounter between Two Luminaries: Comte and Mill
- 13 1842: A Turning Point
- 14 Cours de philosophie positive: Positivism and the Natural Sciences
- 15 Cours de philosophie positive: Sociology
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
15 - Cours de philosophie positive: Sociology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Early Years
- 2 The Life and Works of Saint-Simon up to 1817
- 3 Comte's First Works for Saint-Simon
- 4 Comte's Growing Independence, 1819–1821
- 5 The Fundamental Opuscule and Comte's Rupture with Saint-Simon
- 6 The Aftermath of the Rupture: The Search for Connections
- 7 Comte's Efforts to Establish Himself
- 8 Intellectual and Mental Crises
- 9 The Road to Recovery, 1828–1830
- 10 Years of Success and Confrontation, 1830–1838
- 11 Comte's Changing Psyche and Aberrant Behavior, 1838–1840
- 12 The Encounter between Two Luminaries: Comte and Mill
- 13 1842: A Turning Point
- 14 Cours de philosophie positive: Positivism and the Natural Sciences
- 15 Cours de philosophie positive: Sociology
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Considered from the static and dynamic points of view, man properly speaking is at heart a pure abstraction; there is nothing real except humanity, especially in the intellectual and moral order.
Comte, Cours de philosophic positivePOLITICAL ARGUMENTS SHOWING THE NECESSITY AND TIMELINESS OF THE SCIENCE OF SOCIETY
When Comte turned to the science of society, he had just isolated himself intellectually by adopting the regime of “cerebral hygiene” and was obsessed by his own originality. Whereas heretofore he had merely evaluated and systematized the natural sciences, now he was establishing an entirely new “order of scientific conceptions.” He inveighed against those who had employed and misused the terms “social physics” and “positive philosophy,” which he claimed to have coined seventeen years before. Overlooking the fact that Saint-Simon had used the term “positive philosophy” in his essays written during the Empire, Comte vaguely accused him and his disciples of taking ideas from “his writings, his lessons, and … his conversations.” Comte claimed that his superiority to these and other transgressors was due to his scientific education, which had permitted him to discover the “fundamental principle and rational system” of the doctrine that would solve the philosophical dilemma of the day.
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- Information
- Auguste ComteAn Intellectual Biography, pp. 605 - 690Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993