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We begin this profile of the philosopher, sociologist, mathematician and writer August Comte (1798, Montpellier – 1857, Paris) with this maxim of his: “Love as a principle, order as a foundation and positivism as an end.”
He is the creator of positivism and sociology. These are other words from Comte: “Only positive science could give laws that govern not only nature but our own social history” and “the meaning of knowledge is to foresee and the meaning of foreseeing is to make action possible.”
It had a great impact on 19th century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and George Elliot. His concept of Sociology and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists such as Harriet Martineau or Herbert Spencer, evolving into modern academic sociology presented by Émile Durkheim as practical and objective social research.
Comte is known for being the founder of Positivism, according to which “positive” science is the only way to correctly understand reality. Positive science is opposed to theology and metaphysics, which he considers inferior ways of thinking.
In fact Comte thought that humanity had progressed through three states: the first theological, based on the belief in gods and fantastic beings; then the metaphysical state, which replaces the gods with abstract entities such as final causes, forces, etc.; and finally, the positive state, in which everything would be based on observable facts.
Comte’s social theories culminated in his “Religion of Humanity”, which presaged the development of non-theistic religious humanist and secular humanist organizations in the 19th century.
For 7 years he was secretary of Henry de Saint Simon, a utopian socialist, with ideas of brotherhood and love, defender of the doctrine that grants ownership and control of the means of production to the community to administer them in the interest of all. He is considered the second of the French utopian socialists after François-Noël Babeuf.
He created the word “altruism” by which he lived: he gave free astronomy classes and wrote a multi-volume encyclopedia. His philosophy had great influence, even in the founding of countries, such as Brazil, whose flag reads “order and progress”, part of Comte’s philosophical triad (altruism, order, progress).
According to Comte, “science must forget concepts to state hypotheses that facts can verify or invalidate. All our knowledge must be explained by observation and experience.”
In the mid-19th century, he formulated the idea of ??creating Sociology as a science that has society as its object of study. Sociology would be a knowledge free of all relations with philosophy and based on empirical data to the same extent as the natural sciences.
One of his most notable proposals is that of empirical research for the understanding of social phenomena, structure and social change (which is why Comte is considered the father of sociology as a scientific discipline).
He formulates the hierarchy of sciences that he attributes to “social physics” called by him for the first time Sociology, that is, the task of investigating and organizing complex events in human society.
He changed the course of his doctrine when he met Clotilde de Vaux (1815-1846) who, as he stated, instilled in him her religion for humanity.
Clotilde de Vaux was a French intellectual known for having inspired Comte’s The Religion of Mankind. In October 1844, while visiting her brother, Clotilde, she met one of her Polytechnic professors, the philosopher Auguste Comte.
Comte’s first known letter to Clotilde is dated April 30, 1845 and from that day it was very clear that he was in love with her, a love that Clotilde, a fervent Catholic, firmly rejected.
However, he agreed to continue their correspondence and Comte’s passionate love continued to grow until Clotilde died suddenly of tuberculosis a year later (1846). The correspondence contains the germ of the philosophy on The Religion of Humanity and exceeds 180 letters exchanged.
Comtism ends in a religion. The clergy is a corporation of wise men. New social sacraments mark and sanctify life.
The positivist calendar offers a complete system of commemorations and allows us to celebrate every day the memory of a good servant of humanity, “a Catholicism without Christians”, in the words of Jean Lacroix (Catholic philosopher friend of Emmanuel Mounier who defended the idea of ??the person as a donation, as a gift to others).
He wrote Letter from an Inhabitant of Geneva to His Contemporaries (1803), proposing a government of enlightened people, subsidized by public subscription and elected by the subscribers.
In 1814 he wrote Of European Reorganization describing the future European Parliament. He proposed progress in science and industry, in relation to understanding between men and nations as a basis for the future utopian society.
It proposes a new world inspired by the church organization that had power in the Middle Ages. The brotherhood of all must be established not by religious principles, but on science. This is the new faith. The technique must be applied to peace. The Saint-Simonian church had 12 circumscriptions in France, Belgium and Algeria. It had influence in finance, industry and science.
Politician, journalist and revolutionary. In Picardy, where he served as Lord and Feudist Agent, he learned about the agrarian transformations that were producing social confrontations.
Its activities run parallel to the French Revolution. His doctrine is considered a precursor to communism.
He followed Rousseau and Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709-1785), defender of primitive communitarianism, and Morelly in his Code of Nature, trying to achieve perfect social equality. In 1789 he published Discourse preliminary to the perpetual cadastre with a fierce criticism of social laws. He said that it was prohibited to sell the lands and they must be handed over to the State. “It was in the dust of the manorial archives that I discovered the mysteries of the usurpations of the noble caste,” he wrote.
He asked that through violence we return to the primitive equality of men. He was arrested and imprisoned. He founded a Secret Society in order to overthrow the Directory and establish communism in France. His ideas were contained in the Manifesto of Equals. He proposed a “Golden Age” and a violent revolution and nationalizations were necessary. He conspired against the government in the Conspiracy of Equals. He was sentenced to death.
