5+-+Comte

Comte (Jenny Chang, Katie Plante)

-January 19, 1798 - September 5,1857 -French philosopher, known as the founder of the discipline of sociology and the doctrine of positivism. -Being a founder of social sciences, he believed that human behavior must obey laws just as much as Newton's laws of motion, and that if we could discover them, we could get rid of moral evils. - regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense - influenced by the Utopian socialists - developed the positive philosophy in an attempt to remedy the social malaise of the French revolution, calling for a new social doctrine based on the sciences. This was meant to shape a form of empiricism. -Comte first described this perspective of positivism in //The Course in Positive Philosophy//, a series of texts published between 1830 and 1842. -He concludes this, a theory of history that claims human culture developed (and always must develop) in three stages: 1.**Theological**: In this stage human beings rely on supernatural agencies to explain what they can't explain otherwise. 2.**Metaphysical**: In this stage human beings attribute effects to abstract but poorly understood causes. 3.**Positive**: Human beings now understand the scientific laws that control the world. - social theories culminated in the "religion of humanity", which was influential to the development of religious humanists and Secular Humanist organizations in the 19th century. This secular religion included priests and a calendar of saints. -Other major important works included: //System of Positive Polity, or Treatise on Sociology, Instituting the Religion of Humanity//, (1851-1854, four volumes); and the //Early Writings// (1820-1829) - coined the word "altruism"
 * Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte**