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Archive 1

Father, godfather...

came up with the term of sociology to name the new science made by Saint-Simon. Not fair: Comte is generally regarded as the inventor of sociology, not its baptist. If we can trace it to Saint-Simon, we could equally well trace it further back, I think (Montisque?). Perhaps a change?

Well, we can trace it back to 14th century and Ibn Khaldun. Still, be bold and improve this as you see fit (and if you do so, please consider registering). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:41, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

==origin of term 'positivist' with Comte: "He also gave the name "Positive" to the last of these because of the polysemic connotations of the word." - do we know this from Comte, from some scholarly source, or is this 'merely' a reasonable reconstruction of Comtean motives? -John Rodgers/Arthurkoestler at Wikipedia

Old talk

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). 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

Funny. I would argue that Comte is largely responsible for the negative connotation that the word Positivism has today, even when one actually means the (far sounder) Vienna Circle variety. Luis Dantas 11:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

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)

Certainly, there should be no debate as to whether to call Comte a positivist. Although uninvolved project of Carnap et al, he's an early positivist who can be seen to anticipate these thinkers.

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]. User:Olivier

Category:Atheist philosophers

While I recognize that such a category will never be unanymous, I must wonder: did Comte even consider himself an atheist? He looks a lot more like a deist to me, if not a full-blown monotheist. Luis Dantas 11:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

No - Comte explicitly denies atheism, characterising it as negative and purely critical. Don't know if his self-identification is a good criterion, though: "should we consider him an atheist?" might be better. Then, perhaps, a qualified "yes". 17 May 2006

Metaphysical Phase vs Metaphysics

Metaphysical is a disambiguation page. One of the options is Metaphysics; from context that would be the wrong choice, but the other options are no better. Please fix this. Thanks! --Jamoche 03:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Order and Progress

From Young Turks:

Name of the society, Union and Progress, is believed to be inspired by leading positivist Auguste Comte's motto Order and Progress.

--Error 00:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The Religon of Humanity's Hymns

Shouldn't it be mentioned that Comte made hymns for this "Religion of Humanity"? --208.127.64.127 21:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Is his surname really pronounced 'comt' or is it 'com-tay'? Comt sounds like an English mogrelisation. 211.30.75.123 04:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

As his name is spelt without an accute accent "é" it is pronounced as straight "comt". As far as I'm aware this is in line with standard French pronunciation Madmedea 10:41, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Comte at the ecole polytechnique

According to Scott Gordon, The History and Phillosophy of Social Science, Comte was expelled for leading a student rebellion- a much more exciting story. Any experts?

You may have a look at this. L'omo del batocio 13:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Years and dates ought to be linked

I, for one, as a reader want to be able to check the state of the world during a person's life, and there is no better substitute than being able to click on their year of birth. I want to know what wars were being fought within a person's life, or what other people were born at around the same time. I also want to know what other events happened on their birthday. For these reasons, dates and links ought to be linked. NerdyNSK (talk) 23:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Improvements

This page really needs expansion, particularly in terms of getting off the law of three stages thing, as if that was Comte's only big idea. For the time being, I'm amazed how great the Stanford article on Comte is. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/comte/ This should be used as a reference! --Tomsega (talk) 01:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Anachronism

Section Three Stages somehow mixes Comte's three stages from somewhen between 1830 and 1842 — Darwin commented upon it in 1838 acc2 Law of three stages article — with quantum mechanics which was first formulated in the 1900 quantum hypothesis by Max Planck, acc2 History of quantum mechanics. The section is somehow confused, probably by adding other positivists' work onto the section, but that is off-topic: the name of this article is "Auguste Comte". Comte cannot possibly have had quantum mechanics in mind when formulating the "Law of three stages". That his theories have been further developed is maybe interesting for the article, but then that section should say that it is a further developed. Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 12:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. It's the Course in Positive Philosophy - I think about 5-6 books - that came out between 1830 and 1842, so that's where those dates come from. At the time of Darwin's writing (if that information is correct) Comte was 'merely' a philosopher of science and had not yet fleshed out sociology or positivism. In fact 1838, the year the Darwin quote comes from, was the year Comte first coined the term "sociology" (again, if other references on Wiki are to believed!!) --Tomsega (talk) 20:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Oder and progress as motto

Exactly the sentence "Order and progress" is written in a band in the Brazilian flag, it seems that Auguste Comte had a lot of influence in the emerging American nations.--Jgrosay (talk) 22:57, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Auguste Comte and the Sciences of Astronomy and Cosmology

He wrote: "It's evident that the Solar System is badly designed". Did he want to become god in order of having the opportunity of making it better, or was it a Freudian slip, exposing his deep feelings of confronting God or being like God?--Jgrosay (talk) 23:03, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Comte's Life

I was just reading a book for class that includes a chapter on Comte's life and could add it to the place where there is "citation needed" but I am too much of a newbie to know how to make the citation correctly. Can one of you help? I propose to add this sentence after the one about his marriage "During his marriage his wife suffered through at least one of his attacks of madness which included knife flinging. He was treated for this madness and eventually released uncured." Frank Edward Manuel. The Prophets of Paris. (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1962.) p.261

An editor's footnote to his essay "Examination of Broussais's Treatise on Irritation" from 1828 also refers to Comte's "resentment at his treatment" while institutionalized. Auguste Comte. Early Political Writings. Edited and Translated by H.S. Jones (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998) p.240 --JoyKnoblauch 03:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

At the address http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/130750/Auguste-Comte (Encyclopedia Britannica)we can find different dates for born and death : "Auguste Comte, in full Isidore-auguste-marie-françois-xavier Comte (born January 19, 1798, Montpellier, France—died September 5, 1857, Paris) ". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.136.140.75 (talk) 10:37, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Gloomy Panoply

"Although Comte's English followers, including George Eliot and Harriet Martineau, for the most part rejected the full gloomy panoply of his system" The "gloomy panoply" bit is introduced without giving us a clue as to what it is supposed to mean. GeneCallahan (talk) 21:08, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

This line, like much of the article, is plagiarized. In this case, the line is from a sociology textbook by Fadul and Estoque. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.42.21.83 (talk) 21:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Seriously unclear sentence

From the article's introduction: "Comte's social theories could have culminated in the "Religion of Humanity", which might have influenced the development of religious humanist and secular humanist organizations in the 19th century."

What exactly is this sentence trying to communicate? That the Religion of Humanity might plausibly be considered the culmination of Comte's social theories and that it's also possible it influenced later trends? Or that the R.o.H. as it stands is not the culmination of Comte's social theories, but could've been had he developed it further, and that if he had it then might've influenced later humanist movements?

Whatever is intended, the doubly hypothetical manner in which the sentence is phrased makes it very confusing. CharlesMartel (talk) 17:17, 3 April 2016 (UTC)CharlesMartel

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Comte and Sieyes

Several scholars recently asserted that Comte did not coin himself the word "Sociology" but actually borrow it from Abbé Sieyes who wrote that word "Sociology" in 1788 unpublished papers. JLM 27 December 2006. Comte is not even mentioned in the wikipedia entry for praxeology, FWIW.Ramonflynn (talk) 16:02, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

A famous error of Comte??

First, this section claims that this is a "famous" error of Comte, although the citation does not say it's a famous error.[1] Second, does a non-notable scientific mistake from the 1800s merit a separate section? One that is only 1 line long?

I'm going to remove this section for now until somebody comes back with proper citation and a justification for the section RadPaper (talk) 20:24, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

There were 97,600 results from googling " 'Auguste Comte' composition of planets". Of the first twenty results 13 mentioned his famous error, 6 results referred only to positivism or philosophy and one result was related images.
There were 49,700 results from googling " 'Auguste Comte' Young Turks' Of the first twenty results all referred to both Comte and to Young Turks. Two of the results were Wikipedia.
So, this error of Comte seems published probably a little more than his influence with the Young Turks, which is included in the article. The frequency of publishing seems a good indication of relevance. Is there some better indication of relevance to show insufficient relevance for inclusion? Without reporting his error in astrophysics, the article seems somewhat more positive in its reporting of Auguste Comte than published works in general. So I will restore the removed subtitle while changing the adjective "famous" to something more supported by the reference, and so improve balance. Auguste Comte is actually more famous among astrophysicists for his error in astrophysics prognostication than for his positivism. Since this article is about Comte rather than positivism, his contribution to astrophysics is on topic. - Fartherred (talk) 00:54, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Agreed, seems like trivial criticism. Could be worth mentioning in an article about the book itself. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:47, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Moreover, consider that spectography has dubious epistomological validity. That is because it is only an interpretation of spectrological inferments, it could be debated whether Comte's "mistake" is truly a mistake at all, or to what degree is spectography truly a fail-safe assessment of planetary composition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.10.39.191 (talk) 17:02, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/asras/chemcomp_i/chemcomp_i.html
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