The long French legacy of the Enlightenment and the shock waves of the French Revolution led Auguste Comte (1798-1857), also known as the 'Godfather of Sociology', in his five-volume Course of Positive Philosophy (1830-1842) to sound the call for an order devoted to the scientific study of society. Comte wanted to name this discipline "social physics" to emphasize that it would study the basic nature of the social universe. He was eventually forced to settle on the Latin-Greek hybrid term, Sociology. This word combined the Latin word Socius, meaning Society, and the Greek word Logus, meaning knowledge
The central problem for sociology was the one that had been expressed by earlier thinkers in the Enlightenment: How is society to be held together as it becomes larger, more complex, more varied, more differentiated, more specialized, and more partitioned? Comte's answer was that common ideas and beliefs - a consensus universalis, in his terms - needed to be developed to give society a "universal" morality. Influenced by counterrevolutionary Catholics, he developed a much more sophisticated theoretical system than his predecessors, adequate enough to shape a good portion of early
In his view, disorder and negative philosophies were spreading through French society and he developed sociology as means of combating this. He believed that by applying the same methods and assumptions of natural sciences would produce a 'positive' science of society, and this would reveal that the evolution of society followed 'invariable laws'. It would show that the behaviour of humans was governed by principals of cause and effect that were just as invariable as the behaviour of matter - the subject of natural sciences. In simpler terms, positivism is a way to understand the social world in a scientific way. Therefore, positivism would make us look at the world in a very structured way, and help us understand our social world in a scientific
Comte did not push for revolutionary change, as he felt that the natural evolution of this positive sociology would make things better. Reforms were needed only to assist the process a bit. This leads to the earlier mentioned cornerstone of Comte's approach of his evolutionary theory, or 'The Law of 3 Stages.' This theory proposes that there are three intellectual stages through which the world has gone throughout its
These stages occur as follows
STAGE 1: The Theological Stage
This stage characterized the world prior to 1300 A.D. During this period, the major idea system emphasized was the belief that supernatural powers and religious figures, modelled after human kind, are at the root of everything. In particular, the social and physical world is seen as produced by god.
STAGE 2: The Metaphysical Stage.
This stage occurred approximately between 1300 A.D. and 1800 A.D. It was characterized by the belief that abstract forces like 'nature', rather than personalized gods, explain virtually
STAGE 3: The Positivistic Stage
At around 1800 A.D., the world entered the Positivistic stage, characterized by the belief in science. People now tended to give up the search for absolute causes (God or nature) and concentrated instead on observation of the social and physical world in the search for laws governing them.
In his theory of the world, Comte focused on intelligence factors, and argued that intellectual disorder was the cause of social disorder. The disorder grew from earlier idea systems (theological and metaphysical), that can't exist in the positivistic (scientific) age. Only when positivism gained total control would social upheavals cease. Because this was an evolutionary process, there was no need to agitate social upheaval and revolution. Positivism would come eventually in its own time, which was perhaps not as quickly as some would like
Sociology could speed up the arrival of positivism and consequently bring order to the social world. Comte did not want to seem to be promoting revolution, as he felt there was enough disorganisation in the world. Comte's point of view was that it was intellectual change that was needed, so there was little reason for sociological or political revolution.
Instead, Comte urged sociologists to use observation, experimentation, and comparative historical analysis. He believed that sociologists would be like secular (non religious) priests, bringing a new order to society. They would depend not on divine inspiration, but on scientific knowledge, which would be used to predict in order to control the social order, that was no longer deemed to be God-given, but would be changed and improved on by man on the basis of their understanding. This was the essence of positivism.
So, positivism, rather than examining the way individuals construct the social world around them, assumes that society is an independent system just waiting to be examined, analysed and understood like the natural world, rather like a biologist looking at an ant hill or an astronomer examining the stars. The ultimate aim is to produce a general theory of social action in the same way that physicists are trying to produce a single explanatory theory of the universe. He felt that society should be treated in the same manner as biological organisms. The parts should not be studied individually, but each element should be studied in the light of the whole system, using scientific methods of analysis to produce accurate quantified data.
Positivism has had a great influence on social research, and this is where it is of most use in contemporary society. Before Comte, research was done but lacking science, therefore methods were not uniform, but mainly descriptive, philosophical, speculative, and non-empirical/experimental. Positivism and post-positivism are based on the belief that there is an objective real world which is orderly and predictable. Nature can be understood much as we understand a machine. The aim of research is to discover its cause and effects. These positive methods introduced by Comte and his theory of positivism are very important to social research, in that it made the shift from philosophy to science, but also from speculation to empirical gathering. It also formed the basis for functionalist thought.
The positivistic approach, in terms of research, is used extensively, as it shows that the relationship between a researcher and nature is dualistic. The researcher does not have to be part of nature, but rather, can stand apart from nature and observe it objectively. With positivism, the world is stable, consistent, predictable, and orderly. Things occur in a single-line order of cause and effect: A causes B. Causes in both natural and social worlds can be studied in the same way, through experimental procedure.
In terms of sociology, the positivist approach makes the following assumption: that the behaviour of humans, like the behaviour of matter, can be objectively measured, and one can quantify behaviour just as you can quantify matter, by measures such as: weight, temperature and pressure
The positivist approach in sociology places particular emphasis on behaviour that can be directly observed. It argues that factors that are not directly observable - such as meanings, feelings and purposes - are not particularly important and can be misleading. Atoms and molecules do not act in terms of meanings; they simply react to external stimuli. The positivist approach to human behaviour applies a similar logic - people react to external stimuli and their behaviour can be explained in terms of this reaction.
Positivism however has come to be seen as naﶥ, although it has helped sociology to be seen as a social 'science' in the sense that it involves systematic methods of investigation, the analysis of data, and the assessment of theories in the light of evidence and logical argument. It is said, however, that the studying of human beings should be different from observing events in the physical world, and that neither framework, nor the findings of sociology can be adequately understood simply in terms of comparisons with natural science, as feelings, etc. can have a great effect on how we react to things. For example, if somebody feels they are being scrutinized or forced into something in some way, chances are they will react differently to how they normally would.
Although I agree with this and see the logic behind this, I do feel that positivism is extremely useful in that if it did not exist, the world would be a very different and disorganized place to live. People would be simply guessing at reasons for people's behaviours and other aspects of our social world, with no logical or scientific basis. Everything would be based on pure guessing, and people would still be looking to religion and God for explanations.
Positivism has made society realize that we can take control of our own lives as individuals in society and measure aspects of society in a scientific way in order to predict how we will react to certain situations.
Even though Comte lacked the solid academic base on which to build a school of Comtian sociological theory, he laid the basis for development of a significant stream of sociological theory, as we have seen throughout this assignment. Comte's main contribution to the development of sociology was not so much the substance of his ideas, but his strong advocacy for the acceptance of sociology as a legitimate field of study. He threatened the old academic disciplines, such as philosophy, ethics, theology, and law and in my opinion has had a great influence on the way in which we as society works together.
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