Auguste Comte and Positivism

Auguste Comte lived from 1798 to 1857, he was born in Montpellier, and died in Paris. He lived in a time where many social changes were going on, such as the First Industrial Revolution, and of course, The French Revolution.

He creates Sociology: Science of society, calls it “social physics”, but renames it Sociology. 
To him sociology was supposed to be what physics, for instance, is for nature. A science that studies nature in a neutral and impartial form.

To him that's what sociology was going to be for society:

- “Immutable laws of the social life”: to identify the problems in society and guarantee order and progress towards the Positive Stage of history (will explain later).

Maybe it was destiny, or just my connection to my land, but when I picked Comte I had no idea it was his ideas that funded the Republic in my home country, Brazil.

In the Brazilian flag that are two words written inside, in Portuguese of course, “Ordem e Progresso”, in English, “Order and Progress.”

Those two words are originated from Comte’s idea of Positivism.

In 1842, he released a book called, Introduction to Positive Philosophy, where he explains for the first time Positivism. 

WHAT IS POSITIVISM?

Positivism is a philosophy of science. It is the idea of Teleology, which is the belief that history is going somewhere, to an end, where perfection will be reached, and Progress.

"Love as principle, order as basis, progress as end" - Comte

Love between men will install order, and order will lead us to progress.

Comte believed that history is progressing throughout the years and will reach perfection once it gets to what he calls the Positive Stage of history.

"The law is this: that each of our leading conceptions - each branch of our knowledge - passes successively through three different theoretical conditions: the Theological, or fictitious; the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or positive." - Comte

To him, there are three stages so far in history:

-       Theology, when religion was the explanation for everything.

-      Metaphysical, after the Enlightenment, where philosophy would explain everything.

-      Positivism, the end stage, no more religion or philosophy, where science would explain everything.

The positivist ideas were that society would be ruled by science and industry, there would be no more philosophy, and so no more metaphysical politicians to rule society, he wanted a Republican dictatorship, and Universal, public, and free education for all. 

He wanted Objectivity, however nowadays we have discovered that such thing is impossible, his idea of Positivism is almost impossible, since he thinks that people should not involve themselves in society, but to treat society as a thing in itself, as something separated from us, however this neutrality is impossible, since we're inside society ourselves, we cannot treated as something apart from us, since we're in it, we are a part of it.