The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte

Comte's 'doctrine' of positivism, popular in the nineteenth century, anticipated today's secular humanism.

Auguste Comte (Author), Harriet Martineau (Translated by)

9781108001205, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

584 pages
21.6 x 3.3 x 14 cm, 0.73 kg

The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte is a condensed English version of the French philosopher's controversial work, freely translated by Harriet Martineau and published in two volumes in 1853. Martineau's abridged and more easily digestible version of Comte's work was intended to be readily accessible to a wide general readership, particularly those she felt to be morally and intellectually adrift, and Comte's philosophy indeed attracted a significant following in Britain in the later nineteenth century. Comte's 'doctrine' promoted personal and public ethics and social cohesion based no longer on metaphysics but on strict scientific method, and anticipated twentieth-century logical positivism and secular humanism. The second volume of this translation is devoted entirely to Comte's new science of 'social physics' and human progress, and outlines his theories about society and its development through various phases - theological, humanistic and finally scientific.

Part VI. Social Physics: 1. Necessity and opportunities of this new science
2. Principal philosophical attempts to constitute a social science
3. Characteristics of the positive method in its application to social phenomena
4. Relation of sociology to the other departments of positive philosophy
5. Social statics, or theory of the spontaneous order of human society
6. Social dynamics, or theory of the natural progress of human society
7. Preparation of the historical question: First theological phase, fetichism – beginning of the theological and military system
8. Second phase, polytheism – development of the theological and military system.
9. Age of monotheism – modification of the theological and military system
10. Metaphysical state, and critical period of modern society
11. Rise of the elements of the positive state – preparation for social reorganisation
12. Review of the revolutionary crisis – ascertainment of the final tendency of modern society
13. Final estimate of the positive method
14. Estimate of the results of positive doctrine in its preparatory stage
15. Estimate of the final action of the positive philosophy.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]