1. Auguste Comte developed the philosophy of positivism and established sociology as a distinct scientific discipline. 2. He proposed that societies and human thought progress through theological, metaphysical, and positivistic stages of development. In the positivistic stage, people seek natural laws through empirical research and theory. 3. Comte separated sociological study into social statics, concerning social structures and their functions, and social dynamics, concerning social change over time through progressive evolution. He analyzed key social structures like the individual, family, language, division of labor, and religion.

1. Modern Sociological Theories
Muhammad Saud Kharal
PhD in Social Science,
Department of Sociology Faculty of Social and Political Sciences,
Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya Indonesia

2. Auguste Comte and
Positivism Sociology
(1798-1857)

3. Auguste Comte Biographical
• In 1798 , Auguste Comte was born in Montpelier , France..
• his parents were middle class
• In 1826,he was began to concoct the Positivism philosophy scheme
• In 1830,he worked on the six-volume work for which he is best known ,
Cours de Philosophic Positive , which was finally published in its entirety in
1842.

4. Law of the Three Stages
• Comte identified three basic stages and proceeded to argue
that the human mind, people through the maturation process,
all branches of knowledge, and the history of the world all
pass successively through these three stages.
• 1.The Theological Stage
• 2.The Metaphysical Stage
• 3.The Positivistic Stage

5. 1.The Theological Stage（before 13c)
• In this stage ,the human mind is searching for the
essential nature of things, particularly their origin(where
do they come from?) and their purpose (why do they exist?).
• What this comes down to is the search for absolute
knowledge ,it is assumed that all phenomena are
created ,regulated ,and given their purposes by
supernatural forces or beings(gods).

6. 2.The Metaphysical Stage(13c-18c
• It is a transitional stage between the preceding
theological stage and the ensuing positivistic stage.
• In the metaphysical stage, abstract forces replace
supernatural beings as the explanation for the original
causes and purposes of things in the world.
• Mysterious forces such as “nature” are invoked to explain
why things are the way they are.

7. 3.The Positivistic Stage( after 18c)
• This is the final and most important stage in Comte’s system. At this stage, people
give up their vain search for original causes or purposes. people drop such
nonscientific ideas as supernatural beings and mysterious forces.
• In this stage ,people look for the invariable natural laws that govern all
phenomenathe search for these laws involves both doing empirical research and
theorizing.
• Comte differentiated between concrete and abstract laws. concrete laws must come
inductively from empirical research, whereas abstract laws must be derived
deductively from theory.

8. Four basic methods
• Comte explicitly identified four basic methods for sociology—four basic
ways of doing social research in order to gain empirical knowledg
• The first is the observation
• The second is the experiment
• The third is the comparison
• The forth is the historical research

9. 1.Observation
• Observations should be directed by some theory ,and when made ,they
should be connected to some law.
• Direction observation and indirection observation

10. 2.Experiment
• This method is better suited to the other sciences than it
is to sociology .it is obviously virtually impossible to
interfere with, and to attempt to control, social phenomena.
• .direction experiment and the indirection experiment

11. 3.Comparison
• Three subtypes.
• First, we can compare humans to lower animal societies.
• Second, we can compare societies in different parts of the
world.
• Third, we can compare the different stages of societies over
time.

12. 4.Historical research
• Most important method in sociology.
• Comte wrote: ”necessity of historical studies as the
foundation of sociological speculation”

13. Comte's Sociology
• Comte separated social statics from social dynamics. Social statics are
concerned with the ways in which the parts of a social system (social
structures) interact with one another, as well as the functional relationships
between the parts and to the social system as a whole. Comte therefore
focused his social statics on the individual, as well as such collective
phenomena as the family, religion, language, and the division of labor.

14. Comte's Sociology
• Comte placed greater emphasis on the study of social dynamics, or social
change. His theory of social dynamics is founded on the law of the three
stages; i.e., the evolution of society is based on the evolution of mind
through the theological, metaphysical, and positivist stages. He saw social
dynamics as a process of progressive evolution in which people become
cumulatively more intelligent.

15. Social Statics
• Comte defines the sociological study of social statics as “the
investigation of the laws of action and reaction of the different
parts of the social system.
• In his social statics , Comte was anticipating many of the ideas of
later structural functionalists. deriving his thoughts from biology
Comte developed a perspective on the parts (or structures) of
society, the way in which they function, and their relationship to
the larger social system.

16. • Comte also saw the parts and the whole of the social
system in a state of harmony. the idea of harmony
was later transformed by structural functionalists into
the concept of equilibrium.
• There are three factors in his social statics:
• 1.Individual; 2.Family; 3.Social integration

17. 1.Individual
• Comte sees the individual as imperfect , If we are to hope to be able to
create a “better” world ,the selfish motives of individuals must be controlled
, cannot be controlled from within the individual ,the controls must come
from outside the individual , from society

18. 2.Family
• The family ,not the individual ,is the building block of Comte’s
sociology ,”the true social unit is certainly the family”.
• The family not only is the building block of society but also serves to
integrate the social ; the family is the “school” of society thus ,it is the family
that must play a crucial role in the control of egoism impulses and the
emergence of individual altruism

19. 3.Social integration
There are three elements of society that serves to hold people together
• First is the language.
Language allows people to interact with one another. and helps promote unity
among people , it connects people not only with their contemporaries but also
with their predecessors and their successors.
• Second is the division of labor.
Social solidarity is enhanced in a system in which Social solidarity is enhanced
in a system in which individuals are dependent upon others society should have
a division of labor so that people can occupy the position for which they
qualify on the basis of their abilities and training

20. • Third is the religion.
• Doing a kind of structural-functional analysis, Comte identifies two
major functions of religion
• One , it serves to regulate individual life
• Two, it has function of fostering social relationships among people

21. Social Dynamics
• A. progress is all aspects of society, physical , moral , intellectual , political .
• B. the intellectual is the most important , history by the development of
ideas leading to changes in other areas

22. Comte's Positive Contributions and Weaknesses
• 1. Comte coined the term "sociology“.
• 2. Comte thought of sociology as a positivistic science.
• 3. He elaborated four methods of sociology.
• 4. He distinguished social statics from social dynamics.
• 5. He was a macro sociologist.
• 6. He viewed social structures as taming individual egoism.
• 7. He offered a dialectical view of structural change.
• 8. He attempted to integrate theory and practice

23. weaknesses of Comte's work: