A General View of Positivism (A Selection from Brown Reprints in Sociology) [Hardcover]

Auguste Comte (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1972 | ISBN-10: 0697002144 | ISBN-13: 978-0697002143

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections <br /> such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, <br /> or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, <br /> have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works <br /> worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. <br /> <br/><br/> <br /> ++++<br/> <br /> The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: <br /> <br/>++++ <br /> <br/><br/>&lt;title&gt; A General View Of Positivism<br/><br/>&lt;author&gt; Auguste Comte<br/><br/>&lt;translated by&gt; John Henry Bridges<br/><br/>&lt;publisher&gt; Tr&uuml;bner and co., 1865<br/><br/>&lt;subjects&gt; Positivism

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Book Description

In this book Auguste Comte gives an overview of his social philosophy known as Positivism. In this 1865 English edition of the work he addresses the practical problems of implementing Positivism into society. Under the motto love, order and progress Comte envisions how organised religion is eventually replaced by Humanism. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 426 pages
• Publisher: Irvington Pub (April 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0697002144
• ISBN-13: 978-0697002143
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,509,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We are the world., April 24, 2008

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Yaakov (James) Mosher (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A General View Of Positivism (Hardcover)

A French patriot, writing amid the upheavals of 1848, alerted his countrymen, fellow Europeans, and posterity to an emerging social science that harmonizes order (the conservative impulse) and progress (the liberal impulse). Auguste Comte (1798-1857) called this science "Positivism," positing its ability to break the trend of negativism brought about by the decline of Catholic feudalism and culminating in the French Revolution. Like all brilliant entrepreneurs, Comte saw the revolution as an opportunity within a tragedy.

Erik von Kuenelt-Leddihn, in his book "Leftism Revisited," accurately summarized that Comte sought to create a secular version of the Roman Catholic Church. Comte's reverence for Catholicism is all through "A General View of Positivism" although in trying to sell his philosophy to Frenchmen he made the church sound better than it actually was. Puzzling is his attribution of the idea of separating the temporal power (government) from the spiritual power (philosophic) to the Roman Church. I don't recall the Vatican ever giving up political power voluntarily. Perhaps Comte is crediting the Bible's "Give on to Caesar what is Caesar's and give on to G-d what is G-d's" to Catholicism when it should be attributed to Christianity in general.

Interestingly, as foreshadowed by Comte, the Roman Church has evolved into a more positivist institution, eschewing direct involvement in elections and practical politics and sticking to its morals advisory knitting. Result: Pope Benedict XVI has an 80 percent approval rating with Americans, a level President George W. Bush (who regularly confounds the roles of morals and politics) can only dream of.

Readers will not be able to miss the non-theological, non-metaphysical nature of Comte's "Religion of Humanity." This characteristic is what links it to its variants in other fields - logical empiricism in the field of language and logic as practiced by the Vienna and Berlin circles of the 1920s and 1930s, the physical-science instrumentalism of Ernst Mach and Henri Poincare, and William Clifford's non-Euclidean geometry.

Unlike most other empiricists and inductive thinkers, Comte saw his system eventually embracing all of humanity. Thanks to flexibility under republican principles and a history with Catholicism, France would take the lead in adopting Positivism, with the philosophy gradually adding the remainder of Western Europe then the rest of the world in a period of not less than 200 years. Comte's forecast seems to be on pace. The European Union, peacefully clustered around French-speaking Brussels, is the most public manifestation of Positivism today. (Note its stable currency and the great desire of Eastern Europeans to join while metaphysical America's dollar declines and its NATO policy antagonizes Russia toward Cold War II). Were he alive today, Comte could comfortably say "EU c'est moi."

"A General View of Positivism" makes passing mention of the United States but anyone who picks up a newspaper can easily see that today's America is not ready for Positivism. This is due mainly to the natures of Positivism and U.S. society. Positivism is anti-individualist, anti-militarist, and contrary to the postulates of modern American feminism. Comte venerates women, going so far as to call his Great Being (the new god, i.e. humanity) "She," reflecting the view that women put social feeling over self-love more naturally than any other group (a key tenant of Positivism). Yet Comte's reading of history and discernment of the laws of sociology and nature lead him to determine women's most effective and harmonious role as working in the home, educating and civilizing children (especially males), and influencing public opinion through the salon. Men and women competing in the economy poisons relations between the sexes at their very source, Comte points out. Sad but true yet try selling that to America's NOW gang and teachers unions.

The profoundly conservative and pro-life sentiments of Comte's Positivism are too elevated for the shallow jingoists that make up much of the contemporary American right wing. Consider the American infatuation with novelty, newness, and unrestrained democracy then consider this - "We see this unfortunate narrowness of view too often in the best socialists, who leaving the present without roots in the past, would carry us headlong toward a future of which they have no conception. In all social phenomena, and especially those of modern times, the participation of our predecessors is greater than that of our contemporaries." (p. 403, Robert Speller & Sons edition, published 1957).

Now consider whether prattling about ever-elastic "rights" can come close to valuing the unborn and other humans the way this statement does - "The principle upon which Positivism insists so strongly, the union of the present with the past, and even with the future, is not limited to the life of society. It is a doctrine which unites all individuals and all generations...We may live with those who are not yet born; a thing impossible only till a true theory of history had arisen, of scope sufficient to embrace at one glance the whole course of human destiny." (p. 290-291).

Jewish intellectual Dennis Prager once said he couldn't give a good secular reason for marriage but Comte, further burnishing his conservative credentials, provides one, writing that binding union with one of the opposite sex is crucial for the moral development of the partners. Moreover, polygamy and divorce erode civilization, Comte writes, leading one to speculate if this isn't a leading cause of stagnation in the Islamic world. "The striking superiority of social life in the West is probably due to it (monogamy) more than any other cause." (p. 263).

Positivism would likely be most opposed in America by those who should be best able to discern its assets - conservatives. You'd expect opposition from mass-market neoconservatives like Rush Limbaugh, who tried to discredit John Kerry during the 2004 election by calling him "the French candidate." Others held that the Kerry/Edwards motto ("For a Stronger America") should actually have been "For a Stranger America." Such vapidity doesn't merit a reply.

But reactions of thoughtful conservatives do. In "The Conservative Mind," Russell Kirk warned about positivists and rationalists undermining the "religious nature" of society yet didn't offer one quote from Comte or include Comte in the book's bibliography. Kirk's summation of Comte's philosophy seems tainted by biases favoring theological conservatism and British conservatism. Surely, Kirk was right to recoil at the injection of one aspect of Comte's philosophy (the preeminence of public opinion, which has lead to the Oprah-ization of U.S. politics and government-by-polling data) into a society not ready for Positivism. Yet Kirk's central views about obedience and virtue agree with Comte's.

The best hope for Positivism in the U.S. is for it to be adopted under the brand name of its closest American cousin - Pragmatism, as developed by William James and Charles Peirce. As history further advances the U.S. toward the need for Positivism, with metaphysical and theological notions and government-by-interest group sowing destruction in every direction, the question will arise "Does relativist Positivism, by its communitarian nature, lead to statist absolutism?" (The converse being absolutist religion giving us relativist statism). Comte addressed this by writing that totalitarianism is possible if people confuse Positivism's intellectual nature with its social aspect. Just as revealing is Positivist physicist Philipp Frank's remark about the "tragic feature of enlightenment." To wit, advancing science destroys old conceptions while creating the conditions for misuse of the new ways. Like its religious and philosophical ancestors, the fountainhead that is Positivism can pour forth waters that are bitter and sweet.

Comte's most effective sales pitch is when he uses the features of theology to show that most religious practice is actually self-service. Jewish, Christian, and Islamic conceptions hold that G-d is perfect and needs nothing from humanity. Mirroring the approach of Baruch Spinoza, who equated G-d with the world, Comte reminds us that humanity is in need and we are all part of the Great Being thus we're duty-bound to make the Great Being (our home) a success. In other words, we are the world.