The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte | work by Comte | Britannica (original) (raw)
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discussed in biography
In Auguste Comte: Life …philosophy in a work entitled Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42; “Course of Positive Philosophy”; Eng. trans. The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte). Read More
French literature
In French literature: Renan, Taine, and positivism …Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42; The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte) fathered this new school of thought, called positivism, which became almost a new religion. Ernest Renan adapted this scientific approach to the study of religion itself, most notably in his Vie de Jésus (1863; Life of Jesus), which placed… Read More
history of philosophy
In Western philosophy: Positivism and social theory in Comte, Mill, and Marx The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte), in six volumes. Influenced by Bacon and the entire school of British empiricism, by the doctrine of progress put forward by Turgot and the marquis de Condorcet (1743–94) during the 18th century, and by the very original social reformer… Read More
law of three stages
In law of three stages …title of Comte’s magnum opus: Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42)—because it claims to be concerned only with positive facts. The task of the sciences, and of knowledge in general, is to study the facts and regularities of nature and society and to formulate the regularities as (descriptive) laws; explanations of… Read More
religion
In political philosophy: Saint-Simon and Comte (1851–54; System of Positive Polity), elaborated a “religion of humanity,” with ritual, calendar, a priesthood of scientists, and secular saints, including Julius Caesar, Dante, and Joan of Arc. Society would be ruled by bankers and technocrats and Europe united into a Western republic. This doctrine, backed… Read More
In study of religion: Theories of stages …Cours de philosophie positive (The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte) Comte expounded a naturalistic positivism and sketched out the following stages in the evolution of thought. First, there is what he called the theological stage, in which events are explained by reference to supernatural beings; next, there is the… Read More
science
In positivism: The social positivism of Comte and Mill …title of Comte’s magnum opus: Cours de philosophie positive (1830–42)—because it claims to be concerned only with positive facts. The task of the sciences, and of knowledge in general, is to study the facts and regularities of nature and society and to formulate the regularities as (descriptive) laws; explanations of… Read More
social science
In social science: New intellectual and philosophical tendencies His Cours de philosophie positive (published in English as The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte), published in six volumes between 1830 and 1842, sought to demonstrate irrefutably not merely the possibility but the inevitability of a science of humanity, one for which Comte eventually suggested the… Read More
translation
In Harriet Martineau …her most scholarly work is The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, Freely Translated and Condensed, 2 vol. (1853), her version of Comte’s Cours de philosophie positive, 6 vol. (1830–42). Read More
