Talk:Auguste Comte

I apologize for not having time to add to the page now, but mention should be made of Jonathan Turner's writings on Comte, positivism, and sociology (see Classical Sociological Theory: A Positivist Perspective, by J. H. Turner, 1993). His perspective is that Comte, in his Cours de Philosophie Positive, wrote that sociology should be the pursuit of abstract laws (theory) of social reality, not unlike other scientific endeavors, rooted in empirical observation. This is still relevant in the debate today of just how "real" social phenomena are, and how "scientific" the social sciences are.

Whoever wrote below that Comte's positivism, and "logical positivism", are not the same, is correct. The latter is a product of the Vienna Circle of intellectuals, and has more emphasis on the empirical part of research - Turner argues this is largely responsible for the negative connotation that the term "positivism" has in social research today. -VAZ

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The following was copied from User talk:Olivier

You added a link to positvism to the Auguste Comte article. I did write that article, but are no expert for Comte, but I'm not so sure if the philosophical position called positivism and Comtes positive philosophy have something in common. Do you know more, or could you please check, if this link is right there? --till we *) 11:54 Oct 25, 2002 (UTC)

I addded the link to positivism, because the name of Auguste Comte is often associated to it. He is even said to be the founder of this philosophical movement. A Google search "Auguste Comte positivism" returns more than 3,000 hits. For instance: http://www.erraticimpact.com/~19thcentury/html/comte.htm

This being said, I am not an expert, and would not be able to write anything interesting about this theory. I am not even sure if the Logical positivism to which positivism redirects at the moment is the same concept or if it has any connection with Comte's theory. Maybe there is a misuse in English of "positivism" instead of "positive philosophy", but his concept is definitely called "positivisme" in French.

So, to answer your question, I would believe that the word "positivism" has its place in an article about Comte, but I would leave the final answer to an expert. -olivier 13:46 Oct 25, 2002 (UTC)

I studied some Comte in college (over 20 years ago, so there isn't much I remember now), and there is no question that his philosophy was called "positivism". I think the article needs to state this. However, I also believe that it is different than the "logical positivism" of the 20th century, but I don't know enough off the top of my head to make the distinction. soulpatch

I did a bit of google research ;-) and found http://www.sar.bolton.ac.uk/ltl/lecture2/logical_positivism.htm, which makes it quite clear, that some of the basic concepts of Comtes positivism and the newer logical positivism are shared, but that this are two different positions. I changed the positivism article accordingly. Either there or here in the Comte entry somebody should say a bit more about the contents of Comtes ideas. --till we *) 20:17 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

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Sayeth the article:

Soon he saw unbridgeable differences with his catholic and monarchic family and left again for Paris, earning money by small jobs.

What kind of monarchism is this? Does it mean his family were pro-monarchy or does it mean they believed in monarchianism? (Monarchism is a disambiguation page) --Camembert

They were pro-monarchy, see [1] (http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/Comte/COMTEPER.HTML). User:Olivier