Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was the French positivist philosopher. His full name was Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Xavier Comte. The aim of positivist philosophy was to liberate history from the hold of religion and metaphysics, and to make history to stand on its own base of historical laws. Comte wanted to introduce the scientific observations into the study of history
Important Books of Comte
§ A Plan for the Scientific Works Necessary to Recognize the Society,
§ Course of Positive Philosophy
§ System of Positive polity
His important contributions are:
(i) the adoption of positive or scientific method to history
(ii) the law of the three stages of intellectual development – theological, metaphysical and scientific
(iii) the classification of sciences – Mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and sociology
(iv) Philosophy of each of the sciences prior to sociology
(v) The synthesis of the system of positive philosophy
August Comte believed that the inductive method used in the natural sciences needed to be applied to the history as well as the humanities in general. He also claimed scientific status for the humanities. He thought that all societies operated through certain general laws which needed to be discovered. According to him, all societies historically passed through three stages of development. The three stages are:
(1) The ‘theological’ or fictitious stage, during which the human mind was in its infancy and the natural phenomena were explained as the results of divine or supernatural powers. This stage has 3 sub stages – animism, polytheism and monotheism
(2) The ‘metaphysical’ or abstract stage is transitional in the course of which the human mind passes through its adolescence. In this stage, the processes of nature were explained as arising from occult powers.
(3) The ‘Positive’ stage which witnessed the maturity of human mind and the perfection of human knowledge. Now there was no longer a search for the causes of the natural phenomena but a quest for the discovery of their laws. Observation, reasoning and experimentation were the means to achieve this knowledge. This was the scientific age which is the final stage in the development of human societies as well as human minds.
Comte considered that the Positive stage was dominated by science and industry. In this age the scientists have replaced the theologians and the priests, and the industrialists, including traders, managers and financiers, have replaced the warriors. Comte believed in the absolute primacy of science. In the Positive stage, there is a search for the laws of various phenomena.
Comte arranged the sciences in order of their importance as Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Sociology. Each of these sciences depends upon the previous one. Sociology not only completes the series and acts as a guide in the reconstruction of the society. He thus laid the basis for social history.
In the 19th century a group of historians called the Positivists emerged. They believed in the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte. By philosophy of history, the positivist meant (a) Ascertaining facts (b) Framing laws. The historian was to ascertain facts through sensuous perception and then framing laws through generalization. Under this influence, a new kind of historiography arose called positivist historiography. ‘The historical process’ as R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943) says ‘for the positivists, was in kind identical with natural process, and that was why the methods of natural sciences were applicable to the interpretation of history’. Social and historical phenomena were also subject to certain ascertainable laws and open to treatment as in the case of natural sciences.
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