Auguste Comte

The criticism. That positivism assumes society can be studied exactly as nature is, which the difficulties in [The Nature and Scope of Sociology] contradict: the observer is inside the object, experiment is largely impossible, and meaning has to be interpreted rather than observed. Weber's insistence on verstehen, in [Weber: Social Action and Its Types], is the standing answer to Comte on this point.

2. The law of three stages

The claim. Human thought, in each of its branches and in the whole, passes necessarily through three successive stages, and society passes with it, because the way a society explains the world determines how it organises itself.

The theological stage. Phenomena are explained by the will of supernatural beings. Comte subdivided it into fetishism, in which objects themselves are animate; polytheism, in which many gods govern different domains; and monotheism, in which one god governs all. Its corresponding social order is military, and the dominant groups are priests and military men.

The metaphysical stage. The gods are replaced by abstract forces, essences and principles: nature, right, sovereignty. It is a transitional stage, in which the theological explanation has been abandoned and the positive one not yet reached. Its dominant groups are lawyers and philosophers, which is a point worth noticing on a law syllabus.

The positive stage. Explanation by observed laws established scientifically, with speculation about causes given up. Its corresponding order is industrial, and its dominant groups are scientists and industrialists.

Two features of the law that a good answer notes. It applies to each science separately, and the sciences enter the positive stage in the order of their complexity, which is the hierarchy below. And it applies to the individual as well as to humanity: Comte held that each person passes through the same three stages in their own development.

The criticism. That the stages coexist rather than succeeding one another, since theological, metaphysical and scientific thinking are all present in every modern society; that the scheme is a philosophy of history rather than an empirical finding; that it is evolutionary and unilinear, with the weaknesses in [The Evolutionary Perspective]; and that it flatters the writer's own age by placing it at the summit.

3. The hierarchy of the sciences

Comte arranged the sciences in order of decreasing generality and increasing complexity: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and sociology. Each depends on those before it and none reduces to them.

Two consequences he drew. Sociology is the last science to reach the positive stage, because it is the most complex and depends on all the others, which explains why a science of society appeared so late. And sociology is the highest, because it studies the most complex phenomena and because the others exist ultimately for human purposes.

4. Social statics and social dynamics

Comte divided sociology in two, and the division has outlasted almost everything else he wrote.

Social statics studies the conditions of order: the structure of society at a given moment, the arrangements that hold it together and the relations between its parts. Comte took the family as the elementary unit of society rather than the individual, and treated language, religion and the division of labour as the great bonds of union: language transmits accumulated thought, religion supplies common belief, and the division of labour creates interdependence. He also insisted on consensus, the mutual dependence of the parts of a society, so that none can be understood alone.

Social dynamics studies progress: the laws by which societies develop over time, which for Comte are the three stages.

Why the division survives. Every syllabus in the subject, including this one, still follows it: Module I is largely statics and Module III is dynamics. The vocabulary changed, order and change, structure and process, and the division did not.

His formula, which is worth quoting because it states the relation between the two: order and progress, the one being the condition of the other. A society without order cannot progress, and one without progress cannot maintain order.

What is dead and what is alive

An honest assessment, which examiners reward.

Dead: the law of three stages as history; the religion of humanity he later proposed, with its calendar and its priesthood, which cost him most of his reputation; the claim that sociology would supply a new spiritual basis for society; and the unilinear evolutionism of the whole scheme.

Alive: the name of the discipline; the claim that society can be studied empirically and systematically, which is the foundation everything since rests on; the division into statics and dynamics, order and change; the insistence on consensus, that the parts of a society are interdependent and none is intelligible alone, which is the germ of functionalism in [The Functionalist Perspective]; the use of the comparative and historical methods; and the proposition that sociology is a distinct science with a subject matter of its own.

A worked example

Take the treatment of an accusation of theft.

Theological: guilt is established by an ordeal, on the assumption that a supernatural power will not permit the innocent to suffer. Explanation and procedure alike rest on divine will.

Metaphysical: guilt is established by reasoning from abstract principles, natural justice, natural law, the essential rights of persons, and the procedure is argument about those principles.

Positive: guilt is established by evidence, and the rules of evidence themselves are justified by their observed tendency to produce accurate outcomes; sentencing is informed by data on what actually reduces reoffending.

The illustration is useful and it also exposes the theory's weakness, which is why it is given here. All three are present in a modern legal system at once: the oath survives from the first; natural justice and the language of rights are squarely metaphysical in Comte's sense, and are not going away; and empirical evaluation belongs to the third. The stages are three modes of thought that coexist, not three periods that succeed one another, and that is the standing criticism of the law stated through an example rather than asserted.

Quick revision

1. Auguste Comte, 1798 to 1857. MU prints "August Comte". Coined sociologie in 1838, volume four of the Cours de philosophie positive, six volumes, 1830 to 1842. He had meant to call it social physics and changed it after Quetelet, 1835.
2. Positivism: knowledge is confined to observed facts and the laws found among them; the object is to discover laws; science yields prevision and prevision yields action.
3. Law of three stages: theological (supernatural will; fetishism, polytheism, monotheism; military order; priests and soldiers), metaphysical (abstract forces; transitional; lawyers and philosophers), positive (observed laws; industrial order; scientists and industrialists).
4. It applies to each science separately, and to the individual as well as to humanity.
5. Hierarchy of the sciences: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, which is last to reach the positive stage and highest in complexity.
6. Social statics: order, structure, the family as the unit, language, religion and the division of labour as the bonds, and consensus. Social dynamics: progress, the three stages. Formula: order and progress.
7. Alive: the name, the empirical programme, the statics and dynamics division, consensus as the germ of functionalism, the comparative and historical methods. Dead: the three stages as history, the religion of humanity, unilinear evolution.

Test yourself

1. What is positivism, and what does it require of sociology? The doctrine that genuine knowledge is confined to what can be established by observation and to the laws of succession and resemblance discovered among observed facts, speculation about first causes and ultimate purposes being excluded as unknowable. It requires that society be studied by the methods of science, by observation, comparison and the historical method; that the object be the discovery of laws rather than of essences; and that the knowledge be useful, since on Comte's formula science yields prevision and prevision yields action.

2. State the law of three stages with the social order and dominant groups of each. In the theological stage phenomena are explained by the will of supernatural beings, passing through fetishism, polytheism and monotheism; the social order is military and the dominant groups are priests and military men. In the metaphysical stage explanation is by abstract forces and essences such as nature and right; it is transitional, and its dominant groups are lawyers and philosophers. In the positive stage explanation is by observed laws established scientifically; the order is industrial and the dominant groups are scientists and industrialists.

3. What is the hierarchy of the sciences and what did Comte infer from it? An arrangement of the sciences by decreasing generality and increasing complexity: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and sociology, each depending on those before it without reducing to them. He inferred that sociology would be the last science to reach the positive stage, because it is the most complex and presupposes the others, which explains why a science of society appeared so late; and that it is the highest, because it studies the most complex phenomena.

4. Distinguish social statics from social dynamics. Social statics studies the conditions of order: the structure of a society at a given moment, the arrangements that hold it together and the interdependence of its parts, which Comte called consensus, taking the family as the elementary unit and language, religion and the division of labour as the great bonds of union. Social dynamics studies progress, the laws by which societies develop over time, which for Comte are the three stages. His formula was order and progress, each being the condition of the other.

5. What survives of Comte's work and what does not? There survive the name of the discipline; the programme of studying society empirically and systematically, on which everything since rests; the division into statics and dynamics, order and change, which every syllabus including this one still follows; the idea of consensus, the interdependence of a society's parts, which is the germ of functionalism; and the comparative and historical methods. There do not survive the law of three stages as an account of history, since the three modes of thought coexist in every modern society; the unilinear evolutionism of the scheme; or the religion of humanity he later proposed.