Auguste Comte (1798–1857) is the founder of positivism, aphilosophical and political movement which enjoyed a very widediffusion in the second half of the nineteenth century. It sank intoan almost complete oblivion during the twentieth, when it was eclipsedby neopositivism. However, Comte’s decision to developsuccessively a philosophy of mathematics, a philosophy of physics, aphilosophy of chemistry and a philosophy of biology, makes him thefirst philosopher of science in the modern sense, and his constantattention to the social dimension of science resonates in manyrespects with current points of view. His political philosophy, on theother hand, is even less known, because it differs substantially fromthe classical political philosophy we have inherited.

Comte’s most important works are (1) theCourse on PositivePhilosophy (1830–1842, six volumes, translated andcondensed by Harriet Martineau asThe Positive Philosophy ofAuguste Comte); (2) theSystem of Positive Polity, orTreatise on Sociology, Instituting the Religion of Humanity,(1851–1854, four volumes); and (3) theEarly Writings(1820–1829), where one can see the influence of Saint-Simon, forwhom Comte served as secretary from 1817 to 1824. TheEarlyWritings are still the best introduction to Comte’sthought. In theCourse, Comte said, science was transformedinto philosophy; in theSystem, philosophy was transformedinto religion. The second transformation met with strong opposition;as a result, it has become customary to distinguish, with Mill,between a “good Comte” (the author of theCourse)and a “bad Comte” (the author of theSystem).Today’s common conception of positivism corresponds mainly towhat can be found in theCourse.

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Biography
• 3. The Formative Years: The Collaboration with Saint-Simon and the Early Writings
• 4. TheCourse on Positive Philosophy and the Friendship with Mill
  • 4.1 The law of the three stages
  • 4.2 The classification of the sciences and philosophy of science
  • 4.3 Sociology and its double status
  • 4.4 Comte and Mill
• 5. TheSystem of Positive Polity and the Complete Positivism
  • 5.1 The mind as a servant of the heart
  • 5.2 Positive politics
  • 5.3 The religion of Humanity
  • 5.4 Ethics and sociology
• 6. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Introduction

It is difficult today to appreciate the interest Comte’s thoughtenjoyed a century ago, for it has received almost no notice during thelast five decades. Before the First World War, Comte’s movementwas active nearly everywhere in the world (Plé 1996; Simon1963). The best known case is that of Latin America: Brazil, whichowes the motto on its flag ‘Ordem e Progresso’ (Order andProgress) to Comte (Trindade 2003), and Mexico (Hale 1989) are twoprominent examples. The positivists, i.e., the followers of Comte,were equally active in England (Wright 1986), the United States(Cashdollars 1989; Harp 1994) and India (Forbes 1975). And in the caseof Turkey, its modern secular character can be traced to Comte’sinfluence on the Young Turks.

None of this activity survived the First World War. The new balance ofpower created by the Russian Revolution left no room for positivepolity, and Comtean positivism was taken over by neo-positivism inphilosophy of science. The term ‘post-positivism’, used inthe second half of the 20th century, demonstrates the completedisappearance of what one might call, in retrospect,“paleo-positivism”. As a matter of fact, post-positivismis a kind of “post-neo-positivism”, since the well-knowncriticisms launched by Kuhn and Feyerabend were directed atCarnap’s neopositivism, not Comte’s positivism, aboutwhich they seem to have known very little. This shows that their useof “positivism” forgets totally Comte, who is neverthelessthe man who coined the term. Moreover, in a number of cases, thepost-positivists simply rediscovered points that were well establishedin paleo-positivism (such as the need to take into account the contextof justification and the social dimension of science) but subsequentlyforgotten.

This unexpected agreement between the paleo- and post-positivistsshows that there is some enduring substance to Comte’s originalthinking and partially explains why Comtean studies have seen a strongrevival of late (Bourdeau 2018, Schmaus 2021). Philosophers andsociologists have begun to draw attention to the interesting viewsdefended over a century and a half ago by the founder of positivism.It thus seems that the eclipse of the original positivism is nearingits end.

One quickly notices the gap between the meaning that‘positivism’ had for Comte in the 19th century and themeaning that it has come to have in our times. Thus, contrary to whatis usually thought, Comte’s positivism is not a philosophy ofscience but a political philosophy. Or, if one prefers, Comte’spositivism is a remarkable philosophy that doesn’t separatephilosophy of science from political philosophy. The title of whatComte always regarded as his seminal work (written in 1822 when he wasonly 24 years old) leaves no doubt as to the bond between science andpolitics: it isPlan for the Scientific Work Necessary toReorganize Society, also calledFirst System of PositivePolity. Its goal is the reorganization of society. Science getsinvolved only after politics, when Comte suggests calling inscientists to achieve that goal. So, while science plays a centralrole in positive polity, positivism is anything but a blind admirationfor science. From 1847, positivism is placed under the‘continuous dominance of the heart’ (lapréponderance continue du coeur), and the motto‘Order and Progress’ becomes ‘Love as principle,order as basis, progress as end’ (L’amour pourprincipe, l’ordre pour base et le progrès pour but).This turn, unexpected for many of his contemporaries, was in fact wellmotivated and is characteristic of the very dynamics of Comte’sthought.

The ‘complete positivism’ of what Comte himself called his‘second career’ has on the whole been judged severely.Very quickly, the most famous admirers of the earlyCourse ofPositive Philosophy (1830–1842), such as Mill andLittré, disavowed the author of the laterSystem ofPositive Polity (1851–1854), thereby giving substance tothe idea that there is a good and a bad Comte. Nevertheless, if hisearly writings call for a revision of the standard interpretation ofpositivism, this is even more the case for the works of his‘second career’.

From these introductory remarks, some of the main threads of whatfollows can already be seen. First, whatever the exact worth of thetwo groups of writings that surround it may be, theCourse ofPositive Philosophy (hereafterCourse) remainsComte’s major contribution. Second, an interpretation of thewhole of Comte’s work is confronted with two problems. The firstproblem concerns the unity of Comte’s thought: do the first andthe second career form a continuum, or is there a break? The secondproblem concerns Comte’s relationship to Saint-Simon (see below3.2.): is the founder of positivism merely one Saint-Simonian amongothers, as Durkheim maintained, or should one, as Gouhier (1933)proposed, follow Comte himself, who on this matter spoke of a‘disastrous contact’ that had, at best, merely hinderedhis ‘spontaneous development’ (1830 (56), v. 2, 466)?^[1].

As an approach to Comte’s philosophy, the chronological orderseems the most appropriate guide. After a quick review of somebiographical facts, we will deal first with the Saint-Simonian periodand the early writings, and then with the two great works that standout: theCourse of Positive Philosophy (six volumes,1830–1842), and theSystem of Positive Polity (fourvolumes, 1851–1854).

2. Biography

Comte was born in Montpellier on January 20, 1798 (‘le 1erpluviôse de l’an VI’, according to the Revolutionarycalendar then in use in France). Having displayed his brilliance inschool, he was ranked fourth on the admissions list of theÉcole Polytechnique in Paris in 1814. Two years later, theBourbons closed that institution, and its students were dismissed. InAugust 1817, Auguste Comte met Henri de Saint-Simon, who appointed himas his secretary to replace Augustin Thierry. The young Comte was thusinitiated into politics and was able to publish a great number ofarticles, which placed him very much in the public eye. (The mostimportant of these articles were republished by him in 1854 and remainthe best introduction to his oeuvre as a whole.) In April 1824, hebroke with Saint-Simon. Shortly afterward, in a civil wedding, hemarried Caroline Massin, who had been living with him for severalmonths. In April 1826, Comte began teaching aCourse of PositivePhilosophy, whose audience included some of the most famousscientists of the time (Fourier, A. von Humboldt, Poinsot). It wassuddenly interrupted because of a ‘cerebral crisis’ due tooverwork and conjugal sorrows. Comte was then hospitalized in theclinic of Dr. Esquirol. Upon leaving, he was classified as ‘notcured’. He recovered gradually, thanks to the devotion andpatience of his wife.

The resumption of theCourse of Positive Philosophy inJanuary 1829, marks the beginning of a second period in Comte’slife that lasted 13 years and included the publication of the sixvolumes of theCourse (1830, 1835, 1838, 1839, 1841, 1842).In addition, during this period, more and more of his ties with theacademic world were severed. After being named tutor in analysis andmechanics at the École Polytechnique in 1832, in 1833 he soughtto create a chair in general history of science at the Collègede France, but to no avail. Two unsuccessful candidacies for the rankof professor at the École Polytechnique led him in 1842 topublish a ‘personal preface’ to the last volume of theCourse, which put him at odds with the university worldforever. The two years that followed mark a period of transition. Inquick succession, Comte published anElementary Treatise onAnalytic Geometry (1843), his only mathematical work, and thePhilosophical Treatise on Popular Astronomy (1844), the fruitof a yearly course, begun in 1830, for Parisian workers. TheDiscourse on the Positive Spirit, also from 1844, which heused as the preface to the treatise on astronomy, marked a sharpchange of direction by its emphasis on the moral dimension of the newphilosophy: now that the sciences had been systematized, Comte wasable to return to his initial interest, political philosophy. Publicrecognition of the positivist Comte, as opposed to the saint-simonian,twenty years earlier, came with Émile Littré’sarticles inLe National.

The year 1844 also marked his first encounter with Clotilde de Vaux.What followed was the ‘year like none other’ that launchedwhat Comte himself called his ‘second career’. The maintheme of the second career was the ‘continuous dominance of theheart’. An abundant correspondence testifies to Comte’spassion, who, in spite of a heavy teaching load, found the time tostart working on theSystem of Positive Polity, which he hadannounced at the end of theCourse. After Clotilde’sdeath, in April 1846, Comte began to idolize her, to such an extentthat it became a true cult. A few months later, his correspondencewith Mill, begun in December 1841, came to an end. The next year,Comte chose the evolution of Humanity as the new topic for his publiccourse; this was an occasion to lay down the premises of what wouldbecome the new Religion of Humanity. He was an enthusiastic supporterof the revolution of 1848: he founded the Positivist Society, modelledafter the Club of the Jacobins, and published theGeneral View ofPositivism, conceived of as an introduction to theSystem to come, as well as thePositivist Calendar.In 1849, he founded the Religion of Humanity.

The years 1851–1854 were dominated by the publication of thefour-volumeSystem of Positive Polity, which was interruptedfor a few months in order for him to write theCatechism ofPositive Religion (1852). Relieved of all his duties at theÉcole Polytechnique, Comte now lived off of the‘voluntary subsidy’ begun by the followers of his inEngland and now also granted to him from various countries. InDecember 1851, Comte applauded the coup d’état byNapoleon III, who put an end to the parliamentary‘anarchy’. Littré refused to follow Comte on thispoint, as on the question of religion, and broke with him shortlyafter. Soon disappointed by the Second Empire, Comte shifted his hopesto Czar Nicholas I, to whom he wrote. In 1853, Harriet Martineaupublished a condensed English translation of theCourse ofPositive Philosophy.

Disappointed by the unenthusiastic response his work got from theworkers, Comte launched anAppeal to Conservatives in 1855.The next year, he published the first volume of a work on thephilosophy of mathematics announced in 1842, under the new title ofSubjective Synthesis, or Universal System of the ConceptionsAdapted to the Normal State of Humanity. Increasingly occupied byhis function as High Priest of Humanity, he sent an emissary to theJesuits in Rome proposing an alliance with the‘Ignacians’.

Comte died on September 5, 1857, without having had time to draft thetexts announced up to 35 years before: aTreatise of UniversalEducation, which he thought he could publish in 1858, aSystem of Positive Industry, or Treatise on the Total Action ofHumanity on the Planet, planned for 1861, and, finally, for 1867,aTreatise of First Philosophy. He is buried in thePère-Lachaise cemetery, where his Brazilian followers erected astatue of Humanity in 1983.

3. The Formative Years: The Collaboration with Saint-Simon and the Early Writings

The early writings remain the required starting point for everyone whowishes to understand the goal that Comte incessantly pursued. It isnot without reason that on the first page of theSystem Comteapplied to himself Alfred de Vigny’s words: ‘What is agreat life? A thought of youth, executed by mature age.’ Hisformative years were dominated by his relationship with Saint-Simon.When meeting him in 1817, Comte, like his fellow students at theÉcole Polytechnique, had just been dismissed by Louis XVIII andwas therefore looking for a job. He even thought of emigrating to theUnited States to teach at a school that Jefferson was planning to openand which was to be modeled on the École Polytechnique. TheÉcole Polytechnique, whose faculty included the likes of Arago,Laplace, Cauchy, and Poisson, had been for Comte what theEvangelisches Stift in Tübingen had been for Hegel.There, he got an education in science that was second to none in allof Europe; it left a permanent imprint on him. But he was equally atypical representative of the generation of Tocqueville and Guizotthat saw itself confronted with the question of how to stop theRevolution after the collapse of the Empire. ‘How,’ asComte would put it in 1848, ‘does one reorganize human life,irrespectively of God and king’? (1851, v. 1, 127; E., v. 1,100) It is from this perspective that his profound hostility towardsclassical political philosophy —philosophy that we continue torespect today— has to be understood. With its insistence onfreedom of conscience and on the sovereignty of the people(souveraineté populaire), the revolutionary doctrinehad no other function than to destroy theAncienRégime (founded on papal authority and monarchy by divineright). But in that task it had now succeeded. The moment had come forreconstruction, and it was hard to see how these weapons could be ofuse in such work.

Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the young Comteturned to Saint-Simon. The latter, taking advantage of the relativefreedom of the press granted by Louis XVIII, published more and morepamphlets and magazines, and therefore needed a collaborator. Comtetook over three ideas from the complex thought of Saint-Simon:

1. The contrast between organic and critical periods in history, ofwhich the Revolution had just provided an example.
2. The idea of industrial society. In 1817, under the influence,notably, of B. Constant and J.-B. Say, Saint-Simon had turned himselfinto an apostle of industry. As an attentive observer of theindustrial revolution that was going on before his eyes, he understoodthat it would completely change all existing social relations.Heretofore, we had lived in military societies: man acted on man, andpower belonged to the warrior class. Henceforth, trade would replacewar, and man would mainly concern himself with acting on nature. Comtedrew the quite mistaken conclusion that the era of wars was over (Aron1957).
3. The idea of spiritual power. This is Comte’s most obviousdebt to Saint-Simon. The theme was present from the first work bySaint-Simon (Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to hisContemporaries, 1803) to the last (The New Christianity,1825). It resulted from an observation and a conviction. Saint-Simonobserved the role of science in modern society: he suggested, forexample, that public funds be made available to finance scientificresearch. He was also convinced of the religious nature of socialcohesion and, therefore, of the need for a priestly class in charge ofmaintaining it. This belief led him to the idea of a science of socialorganization, linking these two components: religion would become anapplication of science, permitting enlightened men to govern theignorant. So, instead of trying to destroy every form of religiouslife, one should entrust to the learned the spiritual power leftweakened by the decline of traditional religions. It is also withinthis framework that the text he wrote in 1814 on the reorganization ofEuropean society has to be understood: handling internationalrelations are one of the main attributes of spiritual power, as shownby the medieval papacy.

Comte quickly assimilated what Saint-Simon had to offer him. But Comteaspired to free himself of a tutelage that weighed ever heavier onhim, as he found the unmethodical and fickle mind of the self-taught,philanthropic aristocrat barely tolerable. The break occurred in 1824,occasioned by a shorter work of Comte that would prove to befundamental. Aware of already possessing the main ideas of his ownphilosophy, Comte accused his teacher of trying to appropriate hiswork and furthermore, he pointed out that he had not contented himselfwith giving a systematic form to borrowed concepts (Bourdeau 2019).ThePhilosophical Considerations on the Sciences and theScientists (1825) contains the first and classical formulationsof the two cornerstones of positivism: the law of the three stages,and the classification of the sciences. TheConsiderations onSpiritual Power that followed some months later presentsdogmatism as the normal state of the human mind. It is not difficultto find behind that statement, which may seem outrageous to us, theanti-Cartesianism that Comte shares with Peirce and that brings theirphilosophies closer to one another. As the mind spontaneously stayswith what seems true to it, the irritation of doubt ceases when beliefis fixed; what is in need of justification, one might say, is not thebelief but the doubt. Thus the concept of positive faith is broughtout, that is to say, the necessity of a social theory of belief andits correlate, the logical theory of authority (Bourdeau 2011).

In the year 1826 two major events take place. First, Comte’sprogram was reshaped. The firstSystem of 1822 wasunfinished, and writing the remaining part was one of Comte’spriorities. But in 1826 he postponed that project for an indeterminateperiod. To provide a more solid base for the social science and itsresulting positive polity, he decided first to go through the whole ofpositive knowledge again and to begin a course on positive philosophy.It should be kept in mind that theCourse does not belong toComte’s initial program and that it originally was meant as aparenthesis, or prelude, that was supposed to take a few years atmost. The second major event of 1826, the famous ‘cerebralcrisis’ which occurred immediately after the opening lecture ofthe course forced Comte to stop his public lessons; but it also hadlongstanding effects. Thus it is customary to say that Comte receivedpublic acknowledgement only belatedly: in 1842, with the first letterfrom Mill, and in 1844, with the articles of Littré inLeNational. But that amounts to forgetting that in 1826 Comte was awell-known personality in the intellectual circles of Paris. Guizotand Lamennais held him in high esteem. TheCourse’sattendance list included prestigious names such as A. von Humboldt,Arago, Broussais or Fourier. Mill, who had visited Saint-Simon in1820–21, was deeply impressed by the firstSystem,which one of Comte’s pupils had introduced him to in 1829 (Mill1963, v. 12, 34). Finally, even though Comte had broken withSaint-Simon, the general public saw him as one of the master’smost authoritative spokesmen. This earned him the somewhat peculiaranimosity of the Saint-Simonians: they, with few exceptions, had thedistinctive characteristic of never having personally known the onethey called ‘the father’, whereas Comte had been onintimate terms with him. However, the cerebral crisis made Comteunable to take advantage of the high regard he enjoyed: he disappearedfrom the public scene until 1844.

4. TheCourse on Positive Philosophy and the Friendship with Mill

As said in its first lesson, theCourse pursues two goals.The first, a specific one, is a foundation for sociology, then called‘social physics’. The second, a general goal, is thecoordination of the whole of positive knowledge. The structure of thework reflects this duality: the first three volumes examine the fivefundamental sciences then in existence (mathematics, astronomy,physics, chemistry, biology), and the final three volumes deal withthe social sciences. Executing the two parts did not require the sameamount of work. In the first case, the sciences had already beenformed and it was just a matter of summarizing their main doctrinaland methodological points. In the other case, however, all was stillto be done, and Comte was well aware that he was founding a newscience.

4.1 The law of the three stages

The structure of theCourse explains why the law of the threestages (which is often the only thing known about Comte) is statedtwice. Properly speaking, the law belongs to dynamic sociology ortheory of social progress, and this is why it serves as anintroduction to the long history lessons in the fifth and sixthvolumes. But it equally serves as an introduction to the work as awhole, to the extent that its author considers this law the best wayto explain what positive philosophy is.

The law states that, in its development, humanity passes through threesuccessive stages: the theological, the metaphysical, and thepositive. The first is the necessary starting point for the humanmind; the last, its normal state; the second is but a transitory stagethat makes possible the passage from the first to the last. In thetheological stage, the human mind, in its search for the primary andfinal causes of phenomena, explains the apparent anomalies in theuniverse as interventions of supernatural agents. The second stage isonly a simple modification of the first: the questions remain thesame, but in the answers supernatural agents are replaced by abstractentities. In the positive state, the mind stops looking for causes ofphenomena, and limits itself strictly to laws governing them;likewise, absolute notions are replaced by relative ones. Moreover, ifone considers material development, the theological stage may also becalled military, and the positive stage industrial; the metaphysicalstage corresponds to a supremacy of the lawyers and jurists.^[2].

This relativism of the third stage is the most characteristic propertyof positivism. It is often mistakenly identified with scepticism, butour earlier remark about dogmatism prevents us from doing so.

For Comte, science is a “connaissance approchée”:it comes closer and closer to truth, without reaching it. There is noplace for absolute truth, but neither are there higher standards forthe fixation of belief. Comte is here quite close to Peirce in hisfamous 1877 paper.

The law of the three stages belongs to those grand philosophies ofhistory elaborated in the 19th century, which now seem quite alien tous (for a different opinion, see Schmaus (1982)). The idea of progressof Humanity appears to us as the expression of an optimism that theevents of the 20th century have done much to reduce (Bourdeau 2006).More generally, the notion of a law of history is problematic (eventhough it did not seem so to Mill (1842, bk. VI, chap. X)). AlreadyDurkheim felt forced to exclude social dynamics from sociology, inorder to give it a truly scientific status.

These difficulties, however, are far from fatal to this aspect ofComte’s thought. Putting aside the fact that the idea of moralprogress is slowly regaining some support, it is possible to interpretthe three stages as forms of the mind that co-exist whose relativeimportance varies in time. This interpretation seems to be offered byComte himself, who gives several examples of it in his historylessons. The germs of positivity were present from the beginning ofthe theological stage; with Descartes, the whole of natural philosophyreaches the positive stage, while moral philosophy remains in themetaphysical stage (1830 (58), v. 2, 714–715).

4.2 The classification of the sciences and philosophy of science

The second pillar of positive philosophy, the law of theclassification of the sciences, has withstood the test of time muchbetter than the law of the three stages. Of the variousclassifications that have been proposed, it is Comte’s that isstill the most popular today. This classification, too, structures theCourse, which examines each of the six fundamentalsciences—mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology,sociology—in turn. It provides a way to do justice to thediversity of the sciences without thereby losing sight of their unity.This classification also makes Comte the founder of the philosophy ofscience in the modern sense. From Plato to Kant, reflection on sciencehad always occupied a central place in philosophy, but the scienceshad to be sufficiently developed for their diversity to manifestitself. It was thanks to his education at the ÉcolePolytechnique that Comte, from 1818, began to develop the concept of aphilosophy of science. At about the same time Bolzano wrote hisWissenschaftslehre (1834) and Mill hisSystem ofLogic (1843), Comte’sCourse presented in sequencea philosophy of mathematics, of astronomy, of physics, of chemistry,of biology, and of sociology. Comte’s classification is meantnot to restore a chimerical unity, but to avoid the fragmentation ofknowledge. Thanks to it, the sciences are related to one another in anencyclopedic scale that goes from the general to the particular, andfrom the simple to the complex: moving from mathematics to sociology,generality decreases and complexity increases.

The law of classification of the sciences also has a historicalaspect: it gives us the order in which the sciences develop. Forexample, astronomy requires mathematics, and chemistry requiresphysics. Each science thus rests upon the one that precedes it. AsComte puts it, the higher depends on the lower, but is not its result.The recognition of an irreducible diversity already contains adisavowal of reductionism (in Comte’s wording:‘materialism’), which the classification allows one tomake explicit. The positivist clearly sees that the tendency towardsreductionism is fed by the development of scientific knowledge itself,where each science participates in the evolution of the next; buthistory also teaches us that each science, in order to secure its ownsubject matter, has to fight invasions by the preceding one.‘Thus it appears that Materialism is a danger inherent in themode in which the scientific studies necessary as a preparation forPositivism were pursued. Each science tended to absorb the one next toit, on the grounds of having reached the positive stage earlier andmore thoroughly.’ (1851, v. 1, 50; E., v. 1, 39)

While philosophers of science have always recognized the place ofComte in the history of their discipline, the philosophy of sciencepresented in theCourse, anda fortiori the one intheSystem, have hardly been studied (Laudan 1981, Brenner2021). Comte’s philosophy of science is based on a systematicdifference between method and doctrine. These are, to use Comteanterminology, opposed to one another, as the logical point of view andthe scientific point of view. Method is presented as superior todoctrine: scientific doctrines change (that is what“progress” means), but the value of science lies in itsmethods. At the level of doctrine, mathematics has a status of itsown, well indicated in the second lesson, where it is presented last,and as if to make up for something forgotten. As much as it is itselfa body of knowledge, it is an instrument of discovery in the othersciences, an ‘organon’ in the Aristotelian sense. Amongthe remaining sciences, leaving sociology aside for the moment, twooccupy a pre-eminent place:

Astronomy and biology are, by their nature, the two principal branchesof natural philosophy. They, the complement of each other, include thegeneral system of our fundamental conceptions in their rationalharmony. The solar system and Man are the extremes within which ourideas will forever be included. The system first, and then Man,according to the course of our speculative reason: and the reverse inthe active process: the laws of the system determining those of Man,and remaining unaffected by them. (1830 (40), v. 1, 717–718; E.,v. 1, 384)

The positive method comes in different forms, according to the sciencewhere it is applied: in astronomy it is observation, in physicsexperimentation, in biology comparison. The same point of view is alsobehind the general theory of hypotheses in the 28th lesson, acenterpiece of the positive philosophy of science.

Finally, classification is the key to a theory of technology. Thereason is that there exists a systematic connection between complexityand modifiability: the more complex a phenomenon is, the moremodifiable it is. The order of nature is a modifiable order. Humanaction takes place within the limits fixed by nature and consists inreplacing the natural order by an artificial one. Comte’seducation as an engineer had made him quite aware of the links betweenscience and its applications, which he summarized in an oft-quotedslogan: ‘From science comes prevision, from prevision comesaction’. Only death prevented him from writing theSystem ofPositive Industry, or Treatise on the Total Action of Humanity on thePlanet, announced as early as 1822.

4.3 Sociology and its double status

Sociology has a double status. It is not just one science among theothers, as though there is the science of society just as there is ascience of living beings. Rather, sociology is the science that comesafter all the others; and as the final science, it must assume thetask of coordinating the development of the whole of knowledge. Withsociology, positivity takes possession of the last domain that hadheretofore escaped it and had been considered forever inaccessible toit. Many people thought that social phenomena are so complex thatthere can be no science of them. Dilthey’s idea ofGeisteswissenschaft, for instance, is explicitly directedagainst positivism and maintains the difference between naturalphilosophy and moral philosophy. On the contrary, according to Comte,this distinction, introduced by the Greeks, is abolished by theexistence of sociology, and the unity that was lost with the birth ofmetaphysics restored (1830 (58), v. 2, 713–715).

Founding social science therefore constitutes a turn in the history ofhumanity. Until then, the positive spirit was characterized by theobjective method, which works its way from the world to man; but asthis goal has now been reached, it becomes possible to invert thatdirection and go from man to world, to adopt, in other words, thesubjective method, which so far had been associated with theanthropomorphism of theology. To legitimize that method, it sufficesto substitute sociology for theology, — which is equivalent tosubstituting the relative for the absolute: whereas God may say to thesoul, as in theImitatio, “I am necessary to you andyou are useless to me”, Humanity^[3] is the most dependent of all beings. In the first case, to say thatGod need us is blasphemy: it would be denying his perfection. Thesecond case is in some respects a mere consequence of theclassification of sciences, if we agree to consider humanity as theproper object of sociology. Each science depends on the precedent; asthe final science, sociology is the most dependent one. Human lifedepends for instance on astronomical conditions. Humanity depends alsoon each of us, on what we do and not do; on another sense, of course,each of us depends on humanity, as said by the law of human order:les vivants sont nécessairement et de plus en plusgouvernés par les morts.

To bring out this eminent place of sociology is the principal aim oftheGeneral Conclusions of theCourse. The 58thlesson raises the question of which science presides over the otherson the encyclopedic scale. To guarantee the harmonious development ofthe various sciences taken together, the dominance of one among themhas to be assumed. Until recently, that role had been played bymathematics, but ‘it will not be forgotten that a cradle is nota throne’ (1830 (58), v. 2, 718; E., v. 2, 510) (Bourdeau 2004).One should distinguish the first blossoming of the positive spiritfrom its systematic development. The human point of view, that is tosay, the social point of view, is the only one that is trulyuniversal; now that sociology is born, it is up to it to be in chargeof the development of knowledge.

It goes without saying that Comte’s idea of sociology was verydifferent from the current one. To ensure the positivity of theirdiscipline, sociologists have been quick to renounce its coordinatingfunction, also known as encyclopedic or architectonic function, whichcharacterizes philosophy. With its place at the top of the scale, thesociology of theCourse recapitulates the whole of knowledge,while the sciences that precede it are but one immense introduction tothis final science. As a consequence, no one can become a sociologistwithout having had a solid encyclopedic education, one that has noplace for economics or social mathematics, but, on the contrary,emphasizes biology, the first science that deals with organizedbeings. How far removed this is from today’s sociologycurriculum!

If sociology merges at places with philosophy, it is also closelyrelated to history. Comte was thus led to take a stand on a questionthat deeply divides us today: how should the relations amongphilosophy of science, history of science, and sociology of science beseen? In theCourse, history is at once everywhere andnowhere: it is not a discipline, but the method of sociology. Dynamicsociology is ‘a history without names of men, or even ofpeople’ (1830 (52), v. 2, 239). It is easy to understand, then,that positivism has always refused to separate the philosophy ofscience from the history of science. According to positivism, one doesnot really know a science until one knows its history; indeed, it wasa chair in the general history of science that Comte had asked Guizotto create for him at the Collège de France. Mill’sposition was not quite the same, for he took the author of theCourse to task for neglecting the production of proof, or, touse modern vocabulary, for being more interested in the context ofdiscovery than in the context of justification (Mill 1865). Thecriticism is only partly legitimate: from the second lesson in theCourse, Comte carefully distinguishes between the doctrinaland the historical study of science, opting for the first whileleaving the second for the lessons in sociology. Just as for Comte thephilosophy of science is not a philosophy of nature but of the mind,he likewise values the history of science less as a subject in its ownright than as the ‘most important, yet so far most neglectedpart’ of the development of Humanity (1830 (2), v. 1, 53). Eachscience is therefore examined twice in theCourse: for itsown sake, in the first three volumes; in its relations to the generaldevelopment of society, in the final three. In this way, Comtesucceeds in reconciling the internalist and externalist points ofview, usually considered to be incompatible.

4.4 Comte and Mill

TheCourse’s first readers were in Great Britain; thereform projects of the English Radicals had many points in common withthe positivist concerns. A reading of the first volumes made enough ofan impression on Mill to induce him to write to their author. Thecorrespondence that followed, which lasted from 1841 to 1846, is ofconsiderable philosophical interest. In his first letter, Millpresents himself almost as a follower of Comte and recalls how, someten years before, it had been Comte’s 1822 work that hadliberated him from Bentham’s influence.^[4] But the tone of the letters, while remaining friendly, changesshortly thereafter. Mill does not hesitate to voice objections toComte’s conception of biology and his excluding psychology fromthe sciences. In particular, Mill had strong reservations aboutGall’s phrenology, which Comte endorsed, and proposed to replaceit with ethology. Their disagreements crystallize around ‘laquestion féminine’—that is, the status of women insociety— where it is possible to see how epistemological andpolitical considerations are linked (Guillin 2007).

After 1846, Mill quickly distanced himself from his correspondent. Heeven went so far to describe the Système as “thecompletest system of spiritual and temporal despotism which ever yetemanated from a human brain, unless possibly that of IgnatiusLoyola” (Autobiography, 213). Such judgments—andthere are many— represent an extreme in a much more balancedglobal assessment. Comte’s later philosophy deserves criticism,but Mill was able to see its strong points and mention them. The lastsentences of Mill’s 1865 book give a good example of the uniqueway he manages to mix approval and harsh criticism:

We think M. Comte as great as either of these philosophers [Descartesand Leibniz], and hardly more extravagant. Were we to speak of ourwhole mind, we should call him superior to them: not intrinsically,but by the exertion of equal intellectual power in an age lesstolerant of palpable absurdities, and to which those he has committed,if not in themselves greater, at least appear more ridiculous (Mill1865, p. 182).

And earlier, he said:

We, therefore, not only hold that M. Comte was justified in theattempt to develop his philosophy into a religion, and had realizedthe essential conditions of one, but that other religions are madebetter in proportion as, in their practical result, they are broughtto coincide with that which he aimed at constructing. But, unhappily,the next thing we are obliged to do, is to charge him with making acomplete mistake at the very outset of his operations. (Mill 1865, p.124)

Even though each new edition of Mill’sSystem of Logicsaw fewer references to theCourse than the previous one (inthe first edition there had been more than a hundred), Comte’sinfluence on Mill ran deep, the extent to which is greatlyunderestimated today (Raeder 2002). Mill’sAutobiography is quite explicit on this point as Comtefigures much more prominently in it than Tocqueville with whom Millhad been in contact for a longer time. Conversely, Mill contributedmuch to the spreading of positivism. His book on Comte (Mill 1865)enjoyed considerable success, and Mill himself was sometimesconsidered a positivist.^[5]

5. TheSystem of Positive Polity and the Complete Positivism

Soon after finishing theCourse, Comte returned to hisinitial project and began outlining theSystem of PositivePolity. TheDiscourse on the Positive Spirit, which hadserved as the preface to thePhilosophical Treatise on PopularAstronomy (1844), had already emphasized the social purpose ofpositivism and its aptitude to replace theology in politics andmorality. But his encounter with Clotilde de Vaux would turn his lifeupside down and give Comte’s second career an unexpected twist(1845–1846).

5.1 The mind as a servant of the heart

After Clotilde’s death in 1846, positivism was transformed into“complete positivism”, which is ‘continuousdominance of the heart’ (la prépondérancecontinue du Coeur). ‘We tire of thinking and even ofacting; we never tire of loving’, as the dedication to theSystem put it. Positivism transformed science intophilosophy;complete positivism now transforms philosophyinto religion. The question whether such a move is consistent withComte’s former ideas and more generally with positivism wasasked very early. Mill and Littré answered negatively andcomplete positivism was never very popular.

The transformation of philosophy into religion does not yield areligion of science because, having overcome modern prejudices, Comtenow unhesitatingly ranks art above science. Now that the break-up withthe academic world was complete, the positivists placed their hopes onan alliance with women and proletarians. Comte (who afterClotilde’s death obsessively, even cultishly, devoted himself toher) reserved a decisive role in the positive era for women (Labreure2020). However, this aspect of his work is difficult to accept for acontemporary reader, in particular because it involves the utopianidea of the virgin mother, which means parthenogenesis for humanbeings. As for the proletarians, he saw them as spontaneouspositivists, just as the positivists were systematic proletarians!

The mind, then, is not destined to rule but to serve, not, however, asthe slave of the heart, but as its servant (Bourdeau 2000). Sciencethus retains an essential function. The dominance of the heart isfounded biologically in the ‘positive classification of theeighteen internal functions of the brain, or systematic view of thesoul’ (1851, v. 1, 726; E., v. 1, 594–95). The cerebraltable distinguishes ten affective forces, five intellectual functions,and three practical qualities; these correspond to the heart, mind,and character, respectively. The functions being ordered according toincreasing energy and decreasing dignity, the dominance of the heartcan be considered a datum from positive biology. This classificationis indispensable for an understanding of theSystem. Itshould be mentioned in passing that it shows that the exclusion ofpsychology does not at all have the meaning usually given to it: Comtehad never refused to study man’s higher functions, be theyintellectual or moral, but for him this belongs to biology (theclassification is sometimes also referred to as the ‘cerebraltable’), and so does not require the creation of a new science(1830 (45)). Historically, the conception of theSystem beganwith this table, of which different versions were elaborated insuccession from 1846. Conceptually, it is the first application of thesubjective method, understood as feedback from sociology to thesciences that precede it, starting with the nearest. In this way, thesociologist helps the biologist define the cerebral functions, a taskin which, most often, the biologist simply takes up again thedivisions of folk psychology. Later, in what has become known as the‘letters on illness’, Comte likewise proposes asociological definition of the brain, as the organ through which deadpeople act on living ones.

5.2 Positive Politics

Today, we no longer associate positivism with politics. However, theconnection was present from the outset when Comte served as secretaryof Saint-Simon, and positive politics was quite influential at the endof the nineteenth century. The two main tenets of positive politicsare: there is no society without government; the proper functioning ofsociety requires a spiritual power independent from the temporalpower.

The first principle has two sides. The negative side expressesComte’s lack of interest in the concept of State. The positiveside argues we must consider how social life works in order tounderstand why there must be a government. Surprisingly, Comte’sstarting point is the same as Hayek’s, namely the existence of aspontaneous order. The title of the fiftieth lesson of theCourse reads:Social statics, or theory of spontaneousorder of human society. But, for positivism, spontaneous ordercovers all natural phenomena and is neither perfect nor immutable. Ingeneral, human action aims to substitute natural order with anartificial one more in line with our desires. Government action isonly a special case, applied to the spontaneous order intrinsic tohuman society, which is determined by division of labor. Increasingspecialization, which accompanies division of labor, threatens thecohesion of society even if it is the sine qua non condition ofprogress. That is why a government is needed: its function is‘to check the disorganizing and to foster the convergingtendencies’ of the agents (1852, 205; E. 277).

Regarding the second principle: a spiritual power can only beunderstood in its relation to temporal power. A spiritual power, bynature, is a moderating power, and it presupposes the existence of atemporal power, which in contrast does not presuppose the existence ofa spiritual power. Furthermore, Comte strongly disagrees withhistorical materialism: it is ideas that rule the world, in the sensethat there is no sustainable social order without a minimal consensuson the principles that govern life in society. Initially, Comteplanned to entrust this new spiritual power to scientists, because hesaw science not only as the rational basis for our action upon nature,but also as the spiritual basis of social order.

For at least the last 50 years, positive politics has been unfavorablyviewed as reactionary and totalitarian. And it is true that, in manyrespects, Comte was resolutely anti-modern but, especially in hislater writings, he also held ideas which are in keeping withcontemporary concerns. For instance, he had an acute feeling for theway humanity is dependent on astronomical conditions: assume smallchanges in the elliptical orbit of Earth, in the inclination ofEcliptic, and life, at least life as we know it, would have beenimpossible. Humanity, the proper study of sociology, is closelyconnected to the Earth, the human planet, ‘with its gaseous andliquid envelopes’ (Comte 1851 [1875], 429). In spite of theCopernican revolution, Earth remains for each of us the firm,unshakable ground upon which everything stands. See for instance whatComte says about fatherland and the way ‘the Tent, the Car orthe Ship are to the nomad family a sort of moveable Country,connecting the Family or the Horde with its material basis, as with usthe [Roma] in his van’ (1851, v. 2 285, E. 2 237). Politics isgrounded in geopolitics, wheregeo retains its etymologicalmeaning,Gaia, and where Earth is understood as a planet inthe solar system.

This cosmic character of positive politics helps to understand whatcould appear as an inconsistency. After 1851, Comte proposed to divideFrance into nineteen ‘intendances’. Such a suggestion isquite puzzling since it is incompatible with the received view that hewas a supporter of centralisation. However, the inconsistencydisappears as soon as we take into account the distinction betweentemporal power and spiritual power. Centralisation applies only tospiritual power (Comte had clearly in mind the Papacy) and temporalpower is by nature local. There are many passages where thecorrelation is clearly stated. This follows from the fact that themind is not limited by boundaries; a spiritual power has no choice butto be catholic, that is, universal. Its domain is the planetEarth.

From this, we have at least two consequences. The first one is astrong interest in European reconstruction, a political prioritybetween 1815 and 1820, but not anymore in 1850, after the triumph ofnationalism. The second one is the realization that State as a conceptis a historical product which did not exist before 1500, and there isno reason to believe that States will exist for ever. Hence hisproposal to divide France into nineteen ‘intendances’: theextension of temporal power is not allowed to go beyond territorieslike Belgium or Corsica.

Comte was also one of the first anti-colonialists. As the place wherepositive thinking appeared and developed, Comte considered Europe aleader of humanity (1851 [1875], 313, Varouxakis 2017), but the way ittook possession of the planet in modern times contradicts the veryidea positivism had of Europe’s place in history. Much beforesocialists, English positivists objected to Victorian imperialism (seeClaeys 2008). In this context, Comte and his followers also discussedextensively the respective merits of Christianity and Islam. Turkswere greatly appreciative of Comte and his followers’secularism, which represented a solution to many of the problems ofthe Ottoman Empire. Ahmed Reza, an influent politician, was overtlypositivist. Atatürk and the Young Turks were strongly influencedby them (Kaynar 2021).

5.3 The religion of Humanity

TheSystem’s subtitle isTreatise on SociologyInstituting the Religion of Humanity. While the different formsof deism preserve the idea of God and dissolve religion into a vaguereligiosity, Comte proposes exactly the contrary: a religion withneither God nor the supernatural. His project had little success; heeven accomplished atour de force by uniting both believersand non-believers against him. The many ridiculous details ofComte’s religion made the task of his opponents even easier. Butthis aspect of Comte’s thought deserves better than thediscredit into which it has fallen (Wernick 2000; de Lubac 1945).

Comte defines religion as ‘the state of complete harmonypeculiar to human life […] when all the parts of Life areordered in their natural relations to each other’ (1851, v. 2,8; E.,v. 2, 8). Comte also defines religion as a consensus, analogousto what health is for the body. Religion has two functions, accordingto the point of view from which one considers existence: in its moralfunction, religion should govern each individual; in its politicalfunction, it should unite all individuals. Religion also has threecomponents, corresponding to the threefold division of the cerebraltable: doctrine, worship, and moral rule (discipline).Comte’s discussion is mainly about the first two. If oneconsiders the first to be related to faith and the second to love,their relation takes two forms: ‘Love comes first and leads usto the faith, so long as the growth is spontaneous; but when itbecomes systematic, then the belief is constructed in order toregulate the action of love’ (1852, v. 2, 152; E., v. 2, 83). Atfirst, Comte had followed the traditional order and presented doctrinebefore worship, but he soon gave priority to worship, and saw thischange as a considerable step forward.

In the positivist religion, worship, doctrine and moral rule all havethe same object, namely Humanity, which must be loved, known, andserved. Already theGeneral Conclusions of theCourse compared the concept of Humanity to that of God,affirming the moral superiority of the former. But only in 1847 doesComte make the substitution explicitly; sociological synthesis comesto replace theological synthesis. Membership of Humanity issociological, not biological. In order to belong to what is defined asthe continuous whole of convergent beings — Comte’s termfor (mainly human) beings who tend to agree — one has to beworthy of it. All ‘producers of dung’ are excluded;conversely, animals that have rendered important services can beincluded. Strictly speaking, it is to sociology that one should turnfor knowledge of the laws of the human order but, as the final sciencerecapitulates all others, it is the whole encyclopedic scale(échelle ; it is the result of the classification ofsciences), that constitutes the doctrine of the new religion, whichthereby becomes demonstrated and is no longer revealed orinspired.

The principal novelty of Comte’s religion therefore resides inworship, which is both private (taking place within the family) andpublic. The positivists set up a whole system of prayers, hymns, andsacraments (Wright 1986). As these were all largely inspired byCatholic worship, it was said that it was ‘catholicism withoutChrist’, to which the positivists replied that it was‘catholicism plus science’. The best known and mostoriginal aspects of Comte’s religion are found in its publicworship, and in the positivist liturgical calendar. As Humanityconsists more of dead than living beings, positivism designed a wholesystem of commemorations, which were to develop the sense ofHumanity’s historical continuity. The most prominent form of theworship of Humanity is the worship of great men. Unlike the Frenchrevolutionary calendar, which followed the rhythm of the seasons, thepositivist calendar takes its inspiration from history and pays homageto great men and women from all nations and all times.

Usually, when dealing with positivist religion, one focuses on thefeatures classically associated with religion, as we have just done.It is then easy to miss one of its most original aspects, namely apurely sociological approach (Bourdeau 2020). From this point of view,three types of societies must be distinguished: the family, the State(Greekpolis, LatinCivitas), and the Church. TheState is made up of families, the Church is made up of States. Each isbased on different ties: affective for the first, active for thesecond, and intellectual for the third. Each also has a differentrelationship to space. Hence the necessity to separate the State andthe Church. The religious society is by its nature catholic, in thesense of universal, and therefore has no boundaries other than thoseof the planet; the surface of a State meets different demands, whichimpose rather strict geographic limits. The contrast between Frenchpolitical history and English political history, which was a commonplace in Comte’s time (see for instance Tocqueville or Guizot;it is already present in Montesquieu and Voltaire) illustrates thepoint: there is no separation of Church and State in Great Britain, inthat sense that the Queen is also the head of the Anglican Church.Nevertheless, its main application is related to the issue:centralization against local powers, which is another aspect of thespatial dimension of politics. Of the two political models constantlyconfronted in theCourse, Comte clearly prefers the Frenchone. Its characteristic alliance of the monarchy with the peopleagainst the aristocracy was accompanied by a centralization that theRevolution contented itself with consolidating. One might therefore beled to believe that Comte was a partisan of centralized political(that is: temporal) power, whereas the contrary was in fact the case,as he proposed to divide France into seventeen administrative regions,more or less equivalent to the old provinces (1851, v. 4, 421; Vernon1984). Centralization applies only to the spiritual power.

5.4 Ethics and sociology

Positivism asserted very early its wish to construct a moral doctrinethat owes nothing to the supernatural. If we need a spiritual power,it is because social questions are quite often moral rather thanpolitical. The reforms of society must be made in a determined order:one has to change ideas, then morals (les moeurs; the word isdifficult to translate: it is something like ways of acting, habits,les us et coutumes), and only then institutions. But with theSystem, the moral doctrine (ethics) changes status andbecomes a science, whose task is to extend sociology in order to takeindividual phenomena into account, in particular affective ones.

The terms of the problem as well as its solution are given by a sayingto be found in the margin of the cerebral table: “Act fromaffection and think in order to act” (1851, v. 1, 726; E., v. 1,594). The first part of this “systematic verse” isguaranteed by the dominance of the heart; but, among the ten“affective forces”, the first seven correspond to egoism,the final three to altruism. The whole question is knowing which oneswould prevail, those of “personality” or those of“sociability”. While it is important to acknowledge theinnateness of the sympathetic instincts, one is forced to admit theirnative weakness: the supremacy of the egoistic tendencies is so clearthat it is itself one of the most striking traits in our nature. Thegreat human problem is to reverse the natural order and to teachourselves to live for others.

The solution consists in ‘regulating the inside through theoutside’ and depends, as a consequence, on a good use of themind. The only way in which altruism can win, is to ally itself withthe mind, to make it its servant and not its slave. The heart, withoutthe light of reason, is blind. Left to itself, affectivity ischaracterized by its inconsistency and instability. That is why theinside has to be regulated, that is, disciplined. And this task isassigned to the outside, because exterior reality is the best ofregulators. Whatever its own defects may be, the order that sciencediscloses in nature is, by its indifference to our desires, a sourceof discipline. The recognition of an unchanging external order thusbecomes ‘the objective base of true human wisdom’, and‘in the obligation to conform themselves to it’ ouraffections find ‘a source of fixedness appropriate forcontrolling their spontaneous capriciousness, and a direct stimulationto the dominance of the sympathetic instincts’ (1851, v. 1, 322;E., v. 1, 257). Science now finds itself vested with a moral function;but that also means that ‘thoughts must be systematized beforefeelings’ (1851, v. 1, 21; E., v. 1, 17) and that, if moralascendancy is the primary attribute of the spiritual power, that powerwould not be able to carry out its duties without the aid of asuperior intellect.

While developing a science of morals founded on moral doctrine,Durkheim and Lévy-Bruhl were heavily dependent upon this aspectof theSystem. Like the word ‘sociology’, theword ‘altruism’ was coined by Comte. Being deeply aware ofwhat man and animals have in common, Comte was close to what is knowntoday as ‘evolutionary ethics’: he saw cooperation betweenmen as continuous with phenomena of which biology gives us furtherexamples. The same interest in biology led him to link medicine tomoral doctrine and even to religion. In our modern societies, thestudy of the human being ‘is now irrationally parcelled outamongst three classes of thinkers: the Physicians, who study only thebody; the Philosophers, who imagine to study the mind; and thePriests, who specially study the heart’ (1852, v. 2, 437; E., v.2, 356). To remedy this and to respect the unity of our nature, heproposed giving the new clergy a role in medicine, considering forexample that there is no better endorsement of a rule of hygiene thana religious decree. Before dying, he still had the time to outline, inhis letters to Audiffrent, the rudiments of a sociological theory ofdiseases.

6. Conclusion

On the whole, theSystem was not well received. Almostimmediately, Mill and Littré put forward the idea that therewere a good Comte, the author of theCourse, and a bad Comte,the author of theSystem. However, it is impossible toconfine oneself merely to theCourse. The early works hadmade a strong impression on some of the best minds of the time; theyremain required reading for everyone wishing to understand positivephilosophy, as they are still among the best introductions to thesubject. TheCourse was not part of the initial project,which Comte never lost sight of; the work is best considered as aparenthesis, admittedly open for twenty years, but which Comte hadmeant to close very quickly. The reason why Comte had always presentedthePlan of 1822 as fundamental is that, beginning with thevery title, one finds the two themes that he planned to think throughin their relation to one another: science and society. The foremostquestion is a political one: how should society be reorganized?Science, although present from the beginning, plays a secondary roleas the means to achieve the chosen goal. All of Comte’s workaims at the foundation of a discipline in which the study of societywill finally become positive, scientific. His idea of sociology is notquite the one we are used to today; but the current meaning of theterm ‘positivism’, according to which it is merely aphilosophy of science, is even more misleading as a clue toComte’s thought. Even though the founder of positivism isrightly considered to be one of the great philosophers of science,along with Poincaré and Carnap, his natural place is elsewhere,along with sociologists such as his contemporaries Marx andTocqueville. Only when the question arises of what distinguishes Comtefrom the latter does science enter into the picture.

The limits of Comte’s philosophy of science are easily seen, butthis does not diminish its value, which remains considerable. Yet thesame cannot be said of the positive polity. Given that the separationof spiritual power and temporal power rests on the separation betweentheory and practice, Comte abstained from any direct political action,and, for example, condemned Mill’s decision to stand inparliament. But his own project for the reorganization of societypresents a similar problem. In his writings, it is difficult todistinguish that which concerns objective social science from a reformprogram that reflects only a personal stand.

Apart from that difficulty, the weaknesses of the positive polity arenumerous. Among them, those that are the most conspicuous (criticismof human rights, praise of dictatorship) are not necessarily the mostserious, for objections to the former are easily answered. Forexample, while Comte criticizes freedom of conscience, he is alwayshighly supportive of freedom of expression. We should also find hisdeep respect for spontaneity reassuring, considering that it is animportant part of our idea of freedom. More serious, perhaps, seem tobe the consequences of the rejection of psychology. The moralquestion, ‘What should I do?’, is no longer asked in thefirst person, and is transformed into an engineering problem:‘What should be done to make men more ethical?’ Similarly,the positivists were invited to live openly, whereby the distinctionbetween private and public lives disappears.

However, considering only the weaknesses of the positive polity wouldnot be fair. Even if Comte was often mistaken, his theory ofconsensus, as well as the seriousness with which he considered thequestion ‘What religion after the death of God?’ (to givebut two examples) are likely to help us resolve certain problemsconfronting our society. Comte’s thought is resolutely orientedtoward the future. The order of time, he said, is notpast-present-future, but rather past-future-present. The latter, beingonly ‘a vague and fleeting span which fills the interval betweentwo immensities of duration, and binds them together […], canonly be properly conceived with the aid of the two extremes which itunites and separates’ (1851, v. 2, 364; E., v. 2, 296).

A sound assessment of Comte’s philosophy must also take intoaccount the work of his followers, a topic that has recently receivedrenewed attention, especially for England (Wilson 2019, 2021).

Bibliography

Primary Literature

A standard edition of Comte’s works does not yet exist and someof the most important ones (the second part of theCourse ofPositive Philosophy, the wholeSystem of PositivePolity) have been unavailable for many years (in the case of theSystem, for more than fifty years), until recently. See theOther Internet Resources section below. The most complete edition,which is an anastatic reprint of previously published volumes(essentially 1830–1842 and 1851–1854), is:

• Auguste Comte,Œuvres, Paris: Anthropos (11 vols.),1968–1970.

A new edition has yet to appear. For the time being, only one volumehas been issued:

• Auguste Comte,Cours de philosophie positive, leçons46–51, Paris: Hermann, 2012.

On the other hand, English positivists (Harriet Martineau, RichardCongreve, John H. Bridges, Edward S. Bessly, Frederic Harrison)translated in the second half of the 19th century the most importantworks. So, after the original text, we give the reference to theseEnglish translations, even if they are not easily accessible.

• 1820, “Sommaire appréciation du passémoderne”, inL’Organisateur,8^ième et 9^ième lettres; reprintedin 1851 (v. 4, appendix) and 1970; translated in 1974 and 1998.
• 1822, “Plan des travaux scientifiques nécessairespour réorganiser la société”, Bourdeau M.(ed.), Paris: Hermann, 2020; translated in 1974 and 1998.
• 1825, “Considérations philosophiques sur la scienceet les savants”, inLe Producteur, n° 7, 8 et 10;reprinted in 1851 (v. 4, appendix) and 1970; translated in 1974 and1998 [available on line:www.bibnum.education.fr/tags/auguste-comte]
• 1826, “Considérations sur le pouvoirspirituel”, inLe Producteur, n° 13, 20 et 21;reprinted in 1851 (v. 4, appendix) and 1970; translated in 1974 and1998.
• 1830–1842:Cours de philosophie positive, Paris:Rouen first, then Bachelier (6 vols.); page reference is to the newedition, Paris: Hermann, 2 vols., 1975. Freely translated andcondensed by Harriet Martineau:The positive philosophy of AugusteComte, London: J. Chapman, 1853. Parsons (1961) gives someselections from the sociology lessons.
• 1843,Traité élementaire degéométrie algébrique, Paris: V.Dalmont.
• 1844a,Discours sur l’esprit positif, Paris: V.Dalmont; reprinted, Paris: Vrin, 1995 (introduction to 1844b,published separately). Translated as: A Discourse on the PositiveSpirit, London: Reeves, 1903.
• 1844b,Traité philosophique d’astronomiepopulaire, Paris: V. Dalmont; reprinted, Paris: Fayard,1985.
• 1845–1846,Correspondance avec Clotilde de Vaux,Guigue A. (ed.), Paris: Mercure de France, 2021.
• 1848,Discours sur l’ensemble du positivisme,Paris: Mathias; reprinted, Paris: Garnier Freres, 1998 (introductionto 1851, published separately). Translated as:General View ofPositivism, London: Trubner, 1865.
• 1851–1854,Système de politique positive, outraité de sociologie instituant la religion del’Humanité (4 vols.), Paris, Carilian-Goeury.Translated as:System of Positive Polity, London: Longmans,Green and co., 1875–1877. A new annotated edition is beingpublished; some volumes are already available: v. I-2 (Introductionfondamentale) and v. 2 (Statique sociale), Paris:Hermann, 2022.
• 1852,Catéchisme positiviste, Paris:self-published; reprinted, Paris: Garnier Freres, 1966. Translated as:The Catechism of Positive Religion, London: Trubner,1891.
• 1855,Appel aux conservateurs, Paris: self-published.Translated as:Appeal to Conservatives, London: Trubner,1889. New edition, Paris: Editions du Sandre, 2009.
• 1856,Synthèse subjective, Paris: self-published.Translated as:Subjective Synthesis, London: Kegan Paul,1891.
• 1970,Ecrits de jeunesse: 1816–1828, textesétablis et présentés par P. Carneiro et P.Arnaud; Paris:École Pratique des Hautes Etudes.
• 1973–1990,Correspondance générale etconfessions (8 vols.), Paris: École Pratique des HautesEtudes; La Haye: Mouton.
• 2017,Cours sur l’histoire de l’humanité(1849–1851), texte établi et présentépar L. Fedi; Geneva: Droz.

Translations

• 1974,The Crisis of Industrial Civilisation, The Early Essaysof Auguste Comte, R. Fletcher (ed.), London: Heinemann.
• 1995,The Correspondence of John Stuart Mill and AugusteComte, O. Haac (ed.), London: Transaction Publishers.
• 1998,Early Political Writings, H. S. Jones (ed.),Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Works of Mill

While reading Comte, it is useful to have continual reference to Mill,especially:

• 1843,System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive,London: John Parker; reprinted in Mill 1963ff, vols. 7–8.
• 1865,Auguste Comte and Positivism, London: Trubner;reprinted in Mill 1963ff, vol. 10, pp. 261–368.
• 1873,Autobiography, London: Longmans; reprinted in Mill1963ff, vol. 1, pp. 1–290.
• 1874,Three Essays on Religion, London: Longmans;reprinted in Mill 1963ff, vol. 10, pp. 369–489.
• 1963,Earlier Letters, in Mill 1963ff, v.12–13.
• 1963ff,Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, J. M. Robson(ed.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Secondary literature

• Arbousse-Bastide, P., 1957,La doctrine del’éducation universelle dans la philosophied’Auguste Comte, Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance.
• Aron, R., 1959,La société industrielle et laguerre, Paris: Plon.
• Bensaude, B. and Petit, A., 1976, “Le féminismemilitant d’un auguste phallocrate”,Revuephilosophique, 3: 293–311.
• Bourdeau, M., 2000, “L’esprit ministre ducœur”,Revue de philosophie et dethéologie, 132: 175–192.
• –––, 2004, “L’idée de pointde vue sociologique”,Cahiers internationaux desociologie, 117(1): 225–238.
• –––, 2006,Les trois états: science,théologie et métaphysique chez Comte, Paris,Editions du Cerf.
• –––, 2009, “Agir sur la nature, lathéorie positive de l’industrie”,Revuephilosophique, 439–456.
• –––, 2011, “Pouvoir spirituel et fixationde croyances”,Commentaire, 136: 1095–1104.
• –––, 2016, “Fallait–il oublierComte? Retour surThe Counter Revolution of Science”,Revue européenne des sciences sociales, 54(2):89–112.
• –––, 2019, “Saint-Simon et Auguste Comte,la fin d’une collaboration, 1822–1824”,Archivesde philosophie, 82(4): 771–790.
• –––, 2020, “Sociétépolitique et société religieuse”,Commentaire, 174: 107–114.
• Bourdeau, M., Pickering, M., and Schmaus, W., (eds.), 2018,Love, Order & Progress, The Science, Philosophy and Politicsof Auguste Comte, Pittsburgh: University of PittsburghPress.
• Bourdeau, M, and Chazel, F., (eds.), 2002,Auguste Comte etl’idée de science de l’homme, Paris:L’Harmattan.
• Braunstein, J.-F., 2009,La philosophie de la médecined’Auguste Comte ; Vaches carnivores, Vierge Mère et mortsvivants, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Brenner, A., 2021, “How did Philosophy of Science comeabout? From Comte’s Positive Philosophy to Abel Rey’sabsolute positivism”,HOPOS, The Journal of the InernationalSociety for the History of Philosophy of Science, 11(2):428–445.
• Cashdollars, C. D., 1989,The Transformation of Theology(1830–1890): Positivism and Protestant Thought in Britain andAmerica, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Claeys, G., 2010,Imperial Sceptics, British Critics ofEmpire, 1850–1920, Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
• Clauzade, L., 2009,L’organe de la pensée;Biologie et philosophie chez Auguste Comte, Pressesuniversitaires de Franche-Comté, coll.Annaleslittéraires n° 845, Besançon.
• De Boni, Cl., 2003,Descrivere el futuro, Florence:Florence University Press.
• –––, 2013,Storia di una utopia, lareligione dell’Umanità di Comte e la sua circolazione nelmondo, Milano: Mimesis Edizioni.
• de Lubac, H., 1945,Le drame de l’humanismeathée, Paris, Spes; reprinted in: Œuvrescomplètes, t. II, Paris: Le Cerf, 1998.
• Dixon, Th., 2008,The Invention of Altruism, Oxford:Oxford University Press.
• Fedi, L., 2000,Comte, Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
• –––, 2014,La réception germaniqued’Auguste Comte (Les cahiers philosophiques de Strasbourg,35), Strasbourg: Presses universitaires de Strasbourg.
• Feichtinger, J., Fillager, Fr., and Surman, J., (eds.), 2018,The Worlds of Positivism, A Global Intellectual History,1770–1930, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Forbes, G. H., 1975,Positivism in Bengal, Calcutta:Minerva.
• Gane, M., 2006,Auguste Comte (Key Sociologistseries), London: Routledge.
• Gouhier, H., 1933–1941,La jeunesse d’AugusteComte et la formation du positivisme, Paris: Vrin, 3 vols.
• –––, 1965,La vie d’AugusteComte, Paris: Vrin.
• Grange, J., 1996,La philosophie d’Auguste Comte:science, politique, religion, Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance.
• Guillin, V., 2007, “La question del’égalité des sexes dans la correspondanceMill-Comte: une approche méthodologique”,Archives dephilosophie, 70(1): 57–75.
• –––, 2009,Auguste Comte and John StuartMill on Sexual Equality: Historical, Methodological and PhilosophicalIssues Amsterdam: Brill (Studies in the History of PoliticalThought).
• Hale, Ch., 1989,Transformation of Liberalism in Late 19thCentury Mexico, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Harp, G., 1994,Auguste Comte and the Reconstruction ofAmerican Liberalism, 1865–1920, University Park:Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Hayek, F. 1952,The Counter Revolution of Science,Glencoe: The Free Press.
• Kaynar, E., 2021,L’héroïsme de la viemoderne, Ahmed Riza (1858–1930) en son temps,Paris-Louvain-Bristol: Peeters
• Labreure, D., and Petit, A. (eds.), 2021,Femmes etPositivismes, Strasbourg: Presses universitaires deStrabourg.
• Lacroix, J., 1961,La sociologie d’Auguste Comte,Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Laudan, L., 1981,Science and Hypothesis: Historical Essays onScientific Methodology, Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
• Lepenies, W., 1988,Between Litterature and Science: The Riseof Sociology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• –––, 2010,Auguste Comte, die Macht derZeichen, München: Hanser Verlag.
• Levy-Bruhl, L., 1899,La philosophie d’AugusteComte, Paris: Alcan.
• Macherey, P., 1989,Comte, la philosophie et lessciences, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Mesure, S., 1990,Dilthey et la fondation des scienceshistoriques, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Muglioni, J., 1995,Auguste Comte, un philosophe pour notretemps, Paris: Kimé.
• Parsons, T., 1961,Theories of Society, 2 volumes,Glencoe: The Free Press.
• Petit, A., (ed), 2003,Auguste Comte, Trajectoirespositivistes 1798–1998, Paris: L’Harmattan.
• –––, 2016,Le système d’AugusteComte, de la science à la religion par la philosophie,Paris: Vrin.
• Pickering, M., 1993–2009,Auguste Comte: An IntellectualBiography, vol. 1–3, Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
• Plé, B., 1996,Die “Welt” aus denWissenschaften: Der Positivismus in Frankreich, England und Italienvon 1848 bis ins zweite Jahrzent des 20. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart:Klett-Cotta.
• Raeder, L., 2002,John Stuart Mill and the Religion ofHumanity, Columbia: University of Missouri Press.
• Scharff, R. C., 1995,Comte after Positivism, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
• Schmaus, W, 1982, “A reappraisal of Comte’sThree-states Law”,History and Theory, 21(2):248–66.
• Schmaus, W. , and Rey O., 2021, “Special IssueIntroduction”,HOPOS, The Journal of the InernationalSociety for the History of Philosophy of Science, 11(2):421–427.
• Simon, W. M., 1963,European Positivism in the NineteenthCentury, New York: Kennicat Press.
• Trindade, S., 2003, “La république positiviste chezComte, théorie et pratique”, in Petit 2003.
• Varouxakis, G., 2017, “The Godfather of‘Occidentality’: Auguste Comte and the Idea of ‘TheWest’”,Modern Intellectual History, 1–31.doi: 10.1017/S1479244317000415
• Vernon, R., 1984, “Auguste Comte and the Withering-away ofthe State”,Journal of the History of Ideas, 45:549–66.
• –––, 2005, “Auguste Comte’sCosmopolis of Care”, inFriends, Citizens andStrangers, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Wartelle, J.-Cl., 2001,L’héritaged’Auguste Comte, histoire de “l’Eglise”positiviste, Paris: L’Harmattan.
• Wernick, A., 2000,Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity:The Post-Theistic Program of French Social Theory, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
• Wilson, M., 2019,Moralising Space, The Utopian Urbanism ofthe British Positivists, 1855–1920, London: Routledge.
• –––, 2021,Richard Congreve, PositivistPolitics, and the British Empire, London: PalgraveMacmillan.
• Wright T. R., 1986,The Religion of Humanity: The Impact ofComtean Positivism on Victorian Britain, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

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Other Internet Resources

Online Texts by Comte

Most of Comte’s works are now accessible on the web. In English,for instance:

• The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, Volume I, translated by Martineau.
• A General View of Positivism, translated by J.H. Bridges.
• The Philosophy of Mathematics, from theCours de Philosophie Positive, translated byGillespie.
• The Catechism of Positive Religion, translated by Congreve.

Other texts can be found here:

• Google search for Auguste Comte
• Comte’s works at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Other Online Resources

• Positivist e-texts, a very useful inventory, which gives easy access to 1087 e-texts byComte and positivists, in nine languages .
• Association Internationale Maison d’Auguste Comte, rich documentation on Comte and the positivists.
• Association Positiviste Internationale, not regularly maintained, but presents some useful information.
• Les Classiques des Sciences Sociales, has many texts by Comte, in French.

Related Entries

altruism |authority | consensus |history, philosophy of |metaphysics |Mill, John Stuart |progress |religion: philosophy of |science: unity of |scientific knowledge: social dimensions of

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Mark van Atten for the English translation, and toBéatrice Fink and Mary Pickering for revision of thetranslation and many helpful comments.