Auguste Comte

The life and mind of Auguste Comte

The "Portrait Hollandais" of Auguste Comte, inspired by an early photograph of his. Commons.wikimedia.org

Auguste Comte was born in the south of France in 1798. From a young age, upon witnessing the effects of the French Revolution, Comte was against both Roman Catholicism and the sense of royalism (support of the monarchy) that his parents felt.

In 1814, he entered the École Polytechnique in Paris. Though the school was temporarily shut for renovations, Comte decided to stay in the city and draw on the work of previous philosophers for his own study. He was particularly interested in how scholars studied and explain modern, human societies.

Comte started sharing his ideas on positivism with a small audience, which gradually grew larger and larger. His seven-part work on positive philosophy, “Cours de Philosophie Positive” (1830-1842) (trans: The Positive Philosophy of August Comte) was very well received.

When the École Polytechnique reopened, Comte became a teacher and examiner there for about 10 years. However, he was reported to have disputed with some of his fellow professors, and eventually had to leave the school in 1842.

Between 1851 and 1854, Comte released another one of his major works in four parts: "Système de Politique Positive" (trans: System of Positive Polity) in which he covered the introductory principles of sociology and positivism.

Comte died from stomach cancer in 1857, at the age of 59.

What was Auguste Comte’s contribution to sociology?

Comte is one of the founding fathers of the sociological discipline. One of his biggest contributions to sociology is actually the word ‘sociology’!

The advent of sociology

Comte's ideas inspired many later sociologists, such as Émile Durkheim. Pexels.com

While Comte is credited with coining the term ‘sociology’, some people believe that he isn’t the sole inventor of the discipline. Instead, they believe that sociology was actually invented twice:

• the first time, in the middle of the 19th century, by Auguste Comte, and

• the second time, towards the end of the 19th century, by Émile Durkheim (who wrote the first sociological work and institutionalised the discipline - that is, brought it formally to academia).

What was Auguste Comte's theory of social change?

Like many classical sociologists, Comte was concerned about the Western world’s transition to modernity (or simply put, the process of social change). For example, Karl Marx believed that society progresses as the means of production change. Émile Durkheim believed that social change is an adaptive response to a shift in values.

Comte suggested that social change is caused by a shift in how we interpret reality. To explain this, he used the model of the Law of the Three Stages of the Human Mind.

The Law of the Three Stages of the Human Mind

In his Law of the Three Stages of the Human Mind, Comte suggests that humanity progresses as our way of knowing the world around us changes. Our way of knowing has progressed through three major stages in history:

1. The theological (or religious) stage

2. The metaphysical (or philosophical) stage

3. The positivist stage

The Revolutionary Aftermath

As Comte observed the aftermath of the French Revolution, he realised that the instability that characterised society was caused by trouble in the intellectual realm. While some people believed that there was still some work to be done before the revolution brought about its intended effects of democracy, others wanted to restore the traditional regime of old France.

The Catholic Church was gradually losing its cohesive influence, and was no longer the glue that held society together with its guiding moral principles. People were floating across the three stages - some still in the theological stage, some in the pre-scientific stage, and a few pushing into the scientific mindset.

Comte believed that scientific ideology would soon become dominant. Then, science could have the same integrative and cohesive function that the Church once had - and it could bring about social harmony.

What is the link between Auguste Comte and ‘positivism’?

Another impressive fact about Comte: he is also the founder of positivism!

Positivism

Positivism is a common theoretical position in the social sciences.

Comte believed that the top scientists in France should use scientific methods to create a new system of ideas that everyone would agree on. In this way, the positivist mindset would replace religion as the source of social cohesion.

His 7-volume-long work, “Cours de Philosophie Positive” (1830-1842) (translation: The Positive Philosophy of August Comte), lay the foundations for Comte’s ideas on the positivistic (or scientific) stage of the human mind.

Auguste Comte and functionalism

Comte believed that sociology could be used as a means to help us establish social harmony.

Early signs of functionalism

Comte believed that integrating all the sciences could create a renewed sense of social order. Pexels.com

Functionalism had not yet been created or formalised in Comte’s time, so he is widely considered to be a precursor of the functionalist perspective. If we examine Comte’s works, it is not hard to notice that many functionalist ideas are peppered across them.

Two key examples of Comte’s work show this: his theory on the function of religion, and his ideology on the joining of the sciences.

The function of religion

As we have seen, his main concern was that religion was no longer holding people together (bringing about social cohesion) in the way that it once used to. As a response, he believed that a system of scientific ideas could serve as a new common ground for society - something that people would agree on and that would tie them together in the way that religion did before.

The joining of the sciences

Since Comte was so keen to establish a new, scientifically founded common ground for society, it makes sense that he thought a lot about how the existing system of science could be adapted to fulfil this function.

He suggested that the sciences (he focused on sociology, biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy and maths) should not be considered separately, but should instead be seen for their interrelatedness, similarities and interdependence. We should consider the contribution each of the sciences make to the larger body of knowledge that we all conform to.

Auguste Comte and altruism

Another impressive feat on Comte's part is that he also is considered to be the inventor of the word ‘altruism’ - though his association with this concept is considered to be somewhat controversial.

The Church of Humanity

It shocks many people to know that, in the final years of his life, Comte became very disillusioned with science's potential to bring about social harmony as he had expected it to be able to do. In fact, he believed that religion could indeed carry out a stabilising function to create social cohesion - just not the traditional Catholicism that ruled France around the time of the French Revolution.

In response to this realisation, Comte devised his own religion called the Church of Humanity. This was based on the notion that religion should not stand against science, but compliment it. Where idealised versions of science involved rationality and detachment, Comte believed that it should incorporate notions of universal love and emotion that no human can do without.

In short, 'altruism' is a code of conduct which dictates that all moral action should be guided by the aim of being good to others.

This is where the term 'altruism' comes in. Comte's concept is often raised to disprove the ideas of prior theorists such as Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith. Such scholars emphasised the concept of egoism, suggesting that when people act in their own self-interest, this contributes to a societal system that functions as a whole.

For example, the butcher does not offer his customers meat out of the kindness of his heart, but because this is beneficial to him (because he gets money in exchange).