history of sociology

1. Presented by: Mir Muhammad Abubakar

3.  Auguste Comte was a famous French
philosopher who is best known as the
founder of discipline of sociology. In some
cases, he is regarded as the first philosopher
of the science, too. He even developed the
famous Positive Philosophy in a great attempt
to remedy the social malaise of French
Revolution.

4.  Auguste Comte was born on January 19,
1798 in Montpellier, France. He was born in
the shadow of the French Revolution and as
modern science and technology gave birth to
the Industrial Revolution.

5.  Auguste’s father was a government tax
official while his mother was a housewife.
They were both devout Roman Catholics.
 In 1814 Comte joined Ecole Polytechnique.
Here, he proved to be a very smart
mathematician and scientist.
 He left school before graduating and then
decided to settle in Paris.

6.  He started his life in Paris by teaching
mathematics and journalism.
 During this time, he also studied history,
economics, and philosophy.
 When he turned 19, he met a social theorist
named Henri Simon. Comte became his
secretary and also a collaborator.
 In 1824, this partnership was terminated
over a dispute involving authorship of a
particular writing.

7.  Three stages of society:
The law of three stages is an idea
developed by Auguste Comte. It states that society as a whole,
and each particular science, develops through three mentally
conceived stages:
(1) the theological stage
(2) the metaphysical stage
(3) the positive stage

8.  The Theological stage refers to explanation
by personified divine. During the earlier
stages, people believe that all the phenomena
of nature are the creation of the divine or
supernatural. Men and children failed to
discover the natural causes of various
phenomena and hence attributed them to a
supernatural or divine power.

9. The Metaphysical stage is the extension of the
theological stage. Metaphysical stage refers to
explanation by impersonal abstract concepts.
People often tried to believe that God is an
abstract being. They believe that an abstract
power or force guides and determines events
in the world. Metaphysical thinking discards
belief in a concrete God.

10. For example: In Classical Hindu Indian society
the principle of the transmigration of the soul,
the conception of rebirth, were largely
governed by metaphysical uphill.

11.  The Positivity stage, also known as the
scientific stage, refers to scientific
explanation based on observation,
experiment, and comparison. Positive
explanations rely upon a distinct method,
the scientific method, for their justification.
Today people attempt to establish cause and
effect relationships. This is the highest, most
evolved behavior according to Comte.

12.  Positivism is a philosophical theory stating that
positive knowledge is based on natural
phenomena and their properties and relations.
Thus, information derived from sensory
experience, interpreted through reason and logic,
forms the exclusive source of all certain
knowledge. Positivism holds that valid knowledge
is found only in this knowledge.
 Verified data (positive facts) received from the
senses are known as empirical evidence, thus
positivism is based on empiricism.

13.  The Course in positive Philosophy:
The Course in
Positive Philosophy was a series of texts written
by Auguste Comte, between 1830 and 1842.
Within the work he unveiled the epistemological
perspective of positivism. The works were
translated into English by Harriet Martineau and
condensed to form The Positive Philosophy of
Auguste Comte (1853).

14.  The first three volumes of the Course dealt
chiefly with the physical sciences already in
existence (mathematics, astronomy, physics,
chemistry, biology), whereas the latter two
emphasised the inevitable coming of social
science. It is in observing the circular
dependence of theory and observation in
science, and classifying the sciences in this
way, that Comte may be regarded as the first
philosopher of science in the modern sense
of the term.

15. For him, the physical sciences had
necessarily to arrive first, before humanity
could adequately channel its efforts into
the most challenging and complex "queen
science" of human society itself. His A
General View of Positivism (published in
English in 1865) would therefore set out to
define, in more detail, the empirical goals
of sociology.

16.  On any definition of ideology appeal to
conservatives fits, Comte’s aim is to present a
system for the improvement of the human
condition in such a way as to make the
statement of the system so attractive as to
make it tantamount to achievement of the
ideal.

17.  Comte believed that best of the philosophers
were those who changed the ideas of their
contemporaries. Comte aspired to this height
in order to change the world.

18.  Comte continued to refine and promote his
new world order attempting to unify history,
psychology and economics through the
scientific understanding of society. His work
was promulgated by Europe intellectuals and
influenced the thinking of Karl Marks and
John Stuart Mill.

19.  Comte died due to stomach cancer on
September 5,1857. Though he was self
centered and egoistic, still he devoted his life
for the betterment of the society.