Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte (full name: Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte; January 17, 1798 – September 5, 1857) was a French thinker. He was one of the founders of sociology. He created the word from the Latin: socius, "companion"; and the suffix -ology, "the study of", from Greek λόγος, lógos, "knowledge" ^[4]) He also started a way of thinking about and understanding human knowledge called positivism.^[5]

Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte by Tony Touillon
Born	Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (1798-01-19)19 January 1798 Montpellier, France
Died	5 September 1857(1857-09-05) (aged 59) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Alma mater	University of Montpellier École Polytechnique
Spouse	Caroline Massin (m. 1825–1842)
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
Notable ideas	Sociological positivism, law of three stages, encyclopedic law, altruism
Influences Bacon, Bichat, Condorcet, Descartes, Saint-Simon,[1] Denis Diderot[2]
Influenced Émile Littré, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Herbert Spencer, Émile Durkheim, Charles Maurras,[3] Harriet Martineau, Pierre Laffitte, Eugen Dühring, George Henry Lewes, Edward Spencer Beesly, Frederic Harrison

Life

Comte was born on 19 January 1798 at Montpellier, in southern France. After attending the University of Montpellier, one of the oldest European universities, Comte was admitted to the École Polytechnique in Paris.

He married Caroline Massin, but divorced in 1842.

He died in Paris on 5 September 1857 and is buried at the famous Cimetière du Père Lachaise. His apartment from 1841-1857 is now conserved as the Maison d'Auguste Comte.

Law of three stages

The law of three stages is a socio-historical idea of Auguste Comte. Comte said that knowledge developed in three stages. The first stage is the "theological" stage, in which Comte says that people use religion or gods to explain why things happen or where things came from. The second stage is the "metaphysical" or "abstract" stage, where people use philosophy and abstract ideas to think about their beliefs and explain things. The last stage is the "positive", regarding to the three stages of positivism. Comte said that society could shift into a positivist society if the sciences, including sociology, are all used to explain things.

Works

• Comte, Auguste; Bridges, John Henry (1865). A General View of Positivism. Trübner and Company.
• Comte, A.; Bridges, J.H. (tr.); A General View of Positivism; Trubner and Co., 1865 (reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009; ISBN 978-1-108-00064-2)
• Comte, Auguste (2009). The Catechism of Positive Religion: Or Summary Exposition of the Universal Religion in Thirteen Systematic Conversations between a Woman and a Priest of Humanity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-00087-1.
• Comte, A; Martineau, H. (tr.); The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte; 2 volumes; Chapman, 1853 (reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009; ISBN 978-1-108-00118-2) (but note that C.U.P. say "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", so this is not really Comte's own writings)
• Comte, Auguste (1998). Comte: Early Political Writings. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-46923-4.
• Comte, A.; System of Positive Polity; various publishers
• Comte, A.; Cours de Philosophie Positive, Tome II; Bachelier, Paris, 1835, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31882/31882-h/31882-h.htm; scans of the six volumes are at Projet Gallica

Related pages

• List of sociologists from Europe

References

1. Pickering (2006), p. 192ff.
2. Pickering (2009b), pp. 216 and 304.
3. Sutton, Michael (1982). Nationalism, Positivism, and Catholicism. The Politics of Charles Maurras and French Catholics 1890–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22868-8. esp. Chapters 1 and 2
4. Calhoun, Craig; Press, Oxford University (2002). Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Oxford University Press on Demand. ISBN 0-19-512371-9.
5. Le Système d'Auguste Comte. De la science à la religion par la philosophie, Annie Petit, Paris, Vrin, 2016

Other websites

• Selections from first volume of Cours of positive philosophy
• Auguste Comte quotes Archived 2009-02-02 at the Wayback Machine
• Auguste Comte and Positivism Archived 2009-04-29 at the Wayback Machine