Auguste Comte
1. Positivism:
the Search for Invariant Laws
a. empirical research, subordinated to theory.
b. three ways of doing research: observation,
experiment,
historical
research
c. order and progress
d. both scientific philosophy and a political
practice
supported by philosophers,
working class and women.
2. The
Law of Three Stages –
Theoretical –
essential nature of things – origin and purpose
Metaphysical
– abstract forces replace supernatural beings
Positivist –
phenomena and the relations among them
3. Social
Statics
a. laws of action and reaction
b. biology as source
c. state of harmony
d. idealized model
e. Individual -
source of energy, primarily negative, need for altruism to dominate
egoism
four basic categories of
instincts: nutrition, sex, destruction and construction, pride and
vanity
f. Collective phenomena
family as fundamental
institution
religion –
universal basis of all society
regulates
individual life
fosters social
relationships
language –
connection to others
division of labor
– dependency on others
government –
based on force
4. Social
dynamics
a. laws of succession of social phenomena.
b. society is always changing
c. change is ordered and subject to social laws
d. evolutionary
process
5. Main
contributions:
a. First thinker to use the term sociology
b. defined sociology as a positivistic science
c. articulated three major methods for
sociology
d. differentiated between social statics and
social dynamics
e. defined it in macroscopic terms
f. clearly stated basic ideas about the
domination of human nature by egoism
g. dialectical view of macro structures
h. integrating theory and practice
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