Positive Philosophy:
From the study of the development of human intelligence, in all directions, and through all times, the discovery arises of a great fundamental law, to which it is necessarily subject, and which has a solid foundation of proof, both in the facts of our organization and in our historical experience. 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. In other words, the human mind, by its nature, employs in its progress three methods of philosophizing, the character of which is essentially different, and even radically opposed: namely, the theological method, the metaphysical, and the positive. Hence arise three philosophies, or general systems of conceptions on the aggregate of phenomena, each of which excludes the others. The first is the necessary point of departure of the human understanding, and the third is its fixed and definitive state. The second is merely a state of transition.
In the theological state, the human mind, seeking the essential nature of beings, the first and final causes (the origin and purpose) of all effects -- in short, absolute knowledge -- supposes all phenomena to be produced by the immediate action of supernatural beings.
In the metaphysical state, which is only a modification of the first, the mind supposes, instead of supernatural beings, abstract forces, veritable entities (that is, personified abstractions) inherent in all beings, and capable of producing all phenomena. What is called the explanation of phenomena is, in this stage, a mere reference of each to its proper entity.
In the final, the positive, state, the mind has given over the vain search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws -- that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general facts, the number of which continually diminishes with the progress of science.
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6 comments:
Everybody who's anybody dislikes Comte. Proust's great novel, Au Recherche du Comte Perdu translates as Do Not Look For Comte If We Manage To Lose Him. It is also a little known fact that The Wizard of Oz is a parable of anti-Comtian Pragmatism; Comte is represented by the second winged monkey, the Scarecrow is William James, the Tin Woodman is Charles Sanders Pierce, the Cowardly Lion is Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Dorothy is Theodore Roosevelt. Glinda the Good is Henri Bergson. The Emerald City, naturalment, is that very nice little cafe in the Latin Quarter. Not all of this makes it into the Hollywood version, although the version by Renoir preserves more of the subtleties.
Certainly gives the lie to anyone who claims today's academics write uniquely silly and dense text. dave.s.
Wow, Withy, I had no idea The Wizard of Oz was like that. I was under the mistaken notion it was about the gold standard and other economic policies. Your explanation is so much more interesting.
You're thinking of Franz Wedekind's Spring Awakening. It's a natural mistake; Anais Nin made the same mistake in her early criticism.
I actually found this passage (and most of Comte) fairly easy to understand. It is certainly not the dense thicket of unintelligibility one finds in, say, Derrida. The problem with this passage is the usual problem you get when somebody has decided they have solved history - the proposed solution is obviously false.
Re Withywindle's comment above on The Wizard of Oz:
Since William James and Theodore Roosevelt were at each other's throats about, among other things, the US's turn-of-the-century ventures into imperialism, the joke about James being the Scarecrow and TR being Dorothy doesn't entirely work, IMHO. (And I note The Wizard of Oz was published in 1900 -- I wasn't sure of the exact date so I just looked it up -- exactly when the debate on imperialism was heating up in the wake of the Spanish-American war.)
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