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SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1AUGUSTE COMTE

Full name Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Xavier Comte

Father: Louis, revenue officer

Mother: Rosalie, housewife

Siblings: 4

Religion: Roman Catholic

1798 – Born in Montpellier, France – date significant because at time of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. France changing fast; conflict; disorganization; confusion –

Comte wanted to improve the conditions of people’s lives

$ 1814-1857, Lived in Paris

$ 1814-1816 – attendance at Ecole Polytechnique (best university in France then), left after dispute, therefore never finished college [notice he went to college at 16]

$ 1816-1817 – Private teacher of math

$ 1818-1824 – secretary of Henri Saint Simon (1760-1825), two worked closely together writing – many of Comte’s later ideas can be traced to St. Simon

$ 1824 rest of life – Private scholar and writer

$ 1825 – Married Caroline Masson, a former prostitute and a lively and intelligent woman – unhappy marriage – she left him in 1842, no divorce at that time – no

children

$ 1825 – 1827 – Mental Illness, in hospital, leaves 1826, ‘not cured’ – attempted suicide, rescued by wife

$ 1832 – taught popular astronomy course every Sunday for 20 Years

$ 1830-1854– taught math as private tutor – began writing many books Course of Positive Philosophy, 6 volumes, and System of Positive Politics, 4 volumes

$ 1839 – coined the term SOCIOLOGY

He never had a regular position at any university, but gave popular lectures – he had numerous supporters

$ One of his disciples was a founder of modern Brazil in 1889 (Order and Progress [see below] is on the Brazilian flag)

$ 1841 to death – lived at 10 Prince St. in Paris

$ His apartment is now a Museum, many rooms, open only Wednesday

$ 1844 – met Clothilde de Vaux (he 47, she 23) She was married but husband deserted her; left her with no money; her uncle paid her rent; she wrote stories to make money; she took meals with her brother, a student of Comte, and that’s how they met

$ Brief but intense relationship, he was in love with her, wrote 183 letters in barely a year, platonic relationship; she died in 1846 of tuberculosis – Comte called her his “spiritual wife” – love changed Comte in many ways

$ Three women in his life, mother, Clothilde, and Sophie,

his young housekeeper whom he adopted

(By the way, there are streets in Paris named after him and her)

But after Clothide died 1846 – thought science cannot deal with emotional issues and turns to religion. Began his own religion

Religion of Humanity:

$ Agnostic Religion (no idea of any God)

$ Pope, priests (must marry)

$ Love the Principle, Order the Basis, Progress the Goal

$ Moral Formula is ‘Live for Others’

$ He called himself High Priest of this new religion of humanity

1857 – died at home from stomach cancer surrounded by disciples and housekeeper – his disciples paid rent on his apartment for 50 years after his death. – A museum since 1928

Your professor visited this museum – It’s only open Wednesday afternoon (so if you go to Paris, make sure you’re there on a Wednesday – it’s close to Odeon subway stop on the 4 and 10 lines)

COMTE KEY IDEAS:

1. Possible and necessary to study society scientifically in order to improve it.

$ Possible to apply science to study human behavior (a point others doubted)

$ Necessary because we could take knowledge we gained scientifically to make society better; this is the only way to improve society

$ Remember he grew up in a time of revolution, war, change, conflict, chaos

2. What methods to use:

$ observation guided by theory

$ experiment, but difficult to use in sociology

$ historical, comparing different societies and

$ comparing the same society at different times

3. He divided the study of sociology into two parts

$ Statics – the conditions of society now; social structure, this is not possible unless there is some sort of agreement among the parts of society – ORDER

$ Dynamics – study of the movement and change of society – PROGRESS

$ Statics and Dynamics are linked together, one is not possible without the other – no order without progress and no progress without order

ORDER AND PROGRESS

4. Law of the Three Stages: All history and all sciences pass through three stages

$ Theological

$ Metaphysical

$ Positive

A. Go to Youtube

B. Search Auguste Comte

SCROLL DOWN TO:

Auguste Comte, Father of Positive Philosophy

By Tom Richey, 12:51 time OR

3.2 The Law of the Three Stages of the Human Mind,

7.03 time

5. Hierarchy of the Sciences

A. Go to Youtube

B. Search Auguste Comte

SCROLL DOWN TO:

3.4 The Law of the Classification of Sciences, 6.10 length

COMTE TODAY:

$ Practically nobody reads Comte any more

$ Our methods we use in sociology today come from Durkheim not Comte

$ Law of Three Stages not true

$ Hierarchy of sciences also false, sciences develop together not in order

$ Statics and dynamics similar to study things now and social change

$ Order and Progress not used today – Progress bad word to use because it implies judgment, not an objective word

SO, if we reject so many of his ideas, why did we spend so much time on him?

1. He coined word ‘sociology’ and created the science of society

2. Point 1 above – he insisted we can scientifically study human society

3. He convinced others this is true, including everyone else we will talk about in this course

4. He created ‘positivism’