The Anthem Companion to Auguste Comte

Description

Contributions on re-examination of Auguste Comte’s oeuvre, his thought and contemporary discussion about him

Auguste Comte was a controversial but highly influential nineteenth-century figure, but his work and voluminous oeuvre were largely ignored, even in France, for most of the twentieth century. In the field of sociology, the science he claimed to have invented and the cornerstone of his positive philosophy, Comte became regarded more as an eccentric precursor to Durkheim than a real founder of the discipline, or even a significant contributor to its stock of ideas. Recently, however, Comte’s life and writings have begun to be searchingly re-examined together with the wider religious, social and political project of reform to which his intellectual labors were devoted. What has emerged is a much more complicated picture of his thought and its significance. ‘The Companion to Auguste Comte’ – with ten new critical essays by leading Comte scholars, sociologists, intellectual historians, social theorists and philosophers – contributes to this re-examination, providing a multi-faceted introduction to Comte’s thought and to current discussion about him.

Essays in the volume consider all the phases of Comte’s work, treat a wide range of key areas and provide a broad overview of those aspects most pertinent to sociology and related fields. Areas examined include: Comte’s philosophy of science, his concepts of the social and the political, the statics and dynamics of his sociology, positive religion, art and architecture, civic education and universities, gender and his culte de femmes, and his analyses of the ‘great crisis’, the metaphysical state and the coming positivist order.

Against views of Comte that minimize or distort his place in the modern intellectual tradition, a particular aim of the collection is to examine afresh the multifarious links of his thought and its legacy to other major figures and currents. These include Comte’s relation to the ‘second scientific revolution’, to conservative Catholic theology, to Durkheim and (post)classical socology, British Fabianism, (neo) liberalism and post-positivism, as well as to a host of figures from De Maistre, Saint-Simon, J. S Mill, Spencer, Eliot and Beatrice Webb to Nietzsche, Heidegger, Weber, Wagner, De Corbusier, Bourdieu and Foucault. The chapters move in emphasis from considerations of Comte’s context and formation, to influence and reception and finally to ways in which Comte’s long abandoned historical schema may hold renewed interest for understanding our own times.

Acknowledgements; Introduction – Andrew Wernick; 1. Auguste Comte and the Second Scientific Revolution – Johan Heilbron; 2. ‘Structure’ and ‘genesis’ and Comte’s conception of social science – Derek Robbins; 3. The social and the political in the work of Auguste Comte – Jean Terrier; 4. The counter-revolutionary Comte: theorist of the two powers and enthusiastic medievalist – Carolina Armenteros; 5. The “great crisis”: Comte, Nietzsche and the religion question – Andrew Wernick; 6. “Les ar-z et les sciences”: aesthetic theory and aesthetic politics in Comte's late work – Stefanos Geroulanos; 7. Comte’s civic comedy: secular religion and modern morality in the age of classical sociology – Thomas Kemple; 8. Auguste Comte and the curious case of English women – Mary Pickering; 9. Comte and his liberal critics: from Spencer to Hayek – Mike Gane; 10. Living after positivism, but not without it – Robert C. Scharff; Appendix A: Calendrier positiviste, ou tableau concret de la preparation humaine; Appendix B: Classification positive des dix-huit fonctions du cerveau, ou Tableau systématique de l’àme; Appendix C: Hiérarchie théorique des conceptions humaines, ou tableau synthétique de l’ordre universel; Appendix D: Tableau des quinze grandes lois de philosophie première, ou principes universels sur lesquels repose le dogme positif; Appendix E: Positivist Library in the Nineteenth Century; Notes on contributors; Index.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Sociology

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783086481
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Anthem Companion to Auguste Comte
ANTHEM COMPANIONS TO SOCIOLOGY
Anthem Companions to Sociology offer authoritative and comprehensive assessments of major figures in the development of sociology from the past two centuries. Covering the major advancements in sociological thought, these companions offer critical evaluations of key figures in the American and European sociological tradition, and will provide students and scholars with an in-depth assessment of the makers of sociology and chart their relevance to modern society.
Series Editor
Bryan S. Turner – City University of New York, USA; Australian Catholic University, Australia; and University of Potsdam, Germany
Forthcoming titles
The Anthem Companion to Karl Mannheim
The Anthem Companion to Gabriel Tarde
The Anthem Companion to Philip Rieff
The Anthem Companion to Ernst Troeltsch
The Anthem Companion to Robert Park
The Anthem Companion to Auguste Comte
Edited by Andrew Wernick
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company

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© 2017 Andrew Wernick editorial matter and selection;
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ISBN-13: 978-0-85728-185-2 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 0-85728-185-2 (Hbk)

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments Introduction
Andrew Wernick Chapter One Auguste Comte and the Second Scientific Revolution
Johan Heilbron Chapter Two “Structure” and “Genesis,” and Comte’s Conception of Social Science
Derek Robbins Chapter Three The Social and the Political in the Work of Auguste Comte
Jean Terrier Chapter Four The Counterrevolutionary Comte: Theorist of the Two Powers and Enthusiastic Medievalist
Carolina Armenteros Chapter Five The “Great Crisis”: Comte, Nietzsche and the Religion Question
Andrew Wernick Chapter Six “Les ar-z et les sciences”: Aesthetic Theory and Aesthetic Politics in Comte’s Late Work
Stefanos Geroulanos Chapter Seven Comte’s Civic Comedy: Secular Religion and Modern Morality in the Age of Classical Sociology
Thomas Kemple Chapter Eight Auguste Comte and the Curious Case of English Women
Mary Pickering Chapter Nine Comte and His Liberal Critics: From Spencer to Hayek
Mike Gane Chapter Ten Living after Positivism, but Not without It
Robert C. Scharff Appendix A Calendrier positiviste, ou tableau concret de la preparation humaine; and Culte abstrait de l’Humanité ou célebration systématique de la sociabilité finale Appendix B Classification positive des dix-huit fonctions du cerveau, ou tableau systématique de l’àme Appendix C Hiérarchie théorique des conceptions humaines, ou tableau synthétiques de l’ordre universel Appendix D Tableau des quinze grandes lois de philosophie première, ou principes universels sur lesquels repose le dogme positif Appendix E Positivist Library in the Nineteenth Century
Notes on Contributors
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This anthology, more than many, has been a collective venture. I am grateful to fellow contributors for all their help, stimulus and support, with particular thanks to Mike Gane who was there from the start and Carolina Armenteros for our conversations about positive religion. Jessica Becking provided valuable assistance with the index and appendices. I owe a special debt to Heather Jon Maroney for help with editing and for tolerating, so long, the presence in our midst of M. Comte.
INTRODUCTION
Andrew Wernick
Alfred North Whitehead famously remarked, “A science that hesitates to forget its founders is lost.” 1 Whether sociology is a science, and in what sense, used to be hotly debated. Today, perhaps, it has ceased to matter. Sociology has become too multi-tendency, too divided into specialisms and too overtaken by a general interdisciplinary movement to have any single epistemological stance. It would in any case be hard to argue that it ever could be the kind of science that Whitehead had in mind: one marked, that is, by an accumulating body of discoveries and laws that could be passed on in abstraction from the history that produced them. Indeed, the dictum could be reversed. If sociology forgets its founders, it not only cuts itself off from a rich store of concepts, interpretations and paradigms that can be continually mined for insight and creative re-combinations; it also forgets the large-scale questions with which they were engaged, and shrinks its own ambitions. Be that as it may, few modern thinkers have been more forgotten, or had vaster horizons, than the one who lived in what is now a small musée in Paris at 10 Monsieur-le-prince.
Auguste Comte, the grand systematizer of positivism and, in later years, self-proclaimed Grand-prêtre de l’Humanité , coined the term sociology and was the first to attempt to establish a systematic science of society. A controversial but highly influential nineteenth-century figure, his ideas left their imprint on an extraordinary range of thinkers, writers and tendencies. 2 These included John Stuart Mill, Emile Littré, Herbert Spencer, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, George Eliot, Ernest Renan, Charles Maurras, Lester Ward and Emile Durkheim. Comte’s work gave impetus to the establishment of sociology as an academic discipline in France, Germany and the United States. His philosophy of the sciences attracted the praise of many leading scientists of the day. He did much to organize biology into a coherent field (Canguilhem 1994 : 237–61). His Religion of Humanity established branches in several European and New World countries (Wartelle 2001 ) and was a major ingredient in the “invention of altruism” in Victorian England (Dixon 2008 ). Overseas, Comte’s followers played an important role in the politics of several Latin American countries and to this day his watchword orde e progresso , order and progress, is emblazoned on the Brazilian flag.
Yet for most of the twentieth century Comte’s work was under a cloud, and his voluminous oeuvre largely ignored, even in France. In philosophy, his positivisme came to be eclipsed by, and confused with, “logical positivism.” His religious project was ridiculed. His politics were excoriated as technocratic, authoritarian and a foreshadowing of totalitarianism (Hayek 1980 ). In sociology, itself, the science he claimed to have invented and the cornerstone of his positive philosophy, he came to be regarded more as an eccentric precursor to Durkheim than a real founder of the discipline, or even a significant contributor to its stock of ideas.
In recent decades, however, Comte’s life and writings have begun to be critically re-examined, together with the wider project of social, political and religious reform to which his intellectual labors were devoted. 3 What has emerged is a much more complicated picture of his thought and its significance, both historically and with regard to current issues. The collection of new essays presented here on the formation, legacy and rediscovered relevance of Comte’s social theory and philosophy aims to further this re-examination, while providing, from a diversity of perspectives, a general introduction to his thought.
I will turn to these essays, and to the themes and issues they explore, in a moment. But considering Comte’s still-marginal place in the canon and the myths and mis-recognitions that have clung to his name, it will be useful first to sketch out some basic background and context. Who was Comte? What was his project? What were his major works, and how do they relate to one another? What was his sociology? And what issues have surrounded the way his thought has been received and interpreted?
Life and Works

“My life is based on a novel.” (Car, c’est un roman que le fond de ma vie.)
Auguste Comte 4
Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Xavier Comte—he became plain Auguste in his early twenties—was born in 1798 in Montpellier in the south of France 5 . His father was a provincial tax official and his mother, like his sister, devoutly religious. Precocious and rebellious, he was at odds with his royalist and Catholic family from early on, and by the age of fourteen he was a declared atheist and republican. He also bridled at Napoleonic rule, disliking its militarism, censorship, imperial monarchy and accommodation with the Church. At the same time, he was no supporter of parliamentarism, still less of Rousseau-ian ideas of direct democracy. His sympathies, as a republican, were with Condorcet and the Dantonist current represented by the Convention of 1793–94 and its rule