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Stop Asking "Why?"! French
mathematician and philosopher Auguste Comte
(1798-1857) was the founder of the philosophy of Positivism. In this excerpt
from his six-volume explication of his philosophy, Comte set forth his views
of history and of the socio-political importance of Positivism for the
"crises" confronting Europe. For Comte, human history progressed in
three stages: theological, metaphysical, and positive (or
"scientific"). According to Comte, society was witnessing the rise
of the positive, scientific understanding of the world that demonstrated
clearly the senility of theological or metaphysical perspectives. Moreover,
the application of scientific principles to human social life will, Comte
argued, likewise render social and political conflict obsolete. In order to understand the true
value and character of the Positive Philosophy, we must take a brief general
view of the progressive course of the human mind, regarded as a whole; for no
conception can be understood otherwise than through its history. Law of human progress--From the study of the development of human intelligence,
in all directions, and through all times, the[re] .
. . arises . . . a great fundamental law. . . . 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: viz., 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. First stage. --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. Second stage. --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. Third stage. --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 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. ... Character of the Positive
Philosophy . . . [T]he Positive Philosophy .
. . regards all phenomena as subjected to invariable natural Laws. Our
business is, --seeing how vain is any research into what are called Causes,
whether first or final, --to pursue an accurate discovery of these Laws, with
a view to reducing them to the smallest possible number. By speculating upon
causes, we could solve no difficulty about origin and purpose. Our real
business is to analyse accurately the circumstances
of phenomena, and to connect them by the natural relations of succession and
resemblance. The best illustration of this is in the case of the doctrine of
Gravitation. We say that the general phenomena of the universe are explained
by it, because it connects under one head the whole immense variety of
astronomical facts; exhibiting the constant tendency of atoms towards each
other in direct proportion to their masses, and in inverse proportion to the
squares of their distances; whilst the general fact itself is a mere
extension of one which is perfectly familiar to us, and which we therefore
say that we know; --the weight of bodies on the surface of the earth. As to
what weight and attraction are, we have nothing to do with that, for it is
not a matter of knowledge at all. Theologians and metaphysicians may imagine
and refine about such questions; but positive philosophy rejects them. When
any attempt has been made to explain them, it has ended only in saying that
attraction is universal weight, and that weight is terrestrial attraction;
that is, that the two orders of phenomena are identical; which is the point
from which the question set out. . . . ... The Positive Philosophy offers the
only solid basis for that Social Reorganization which must succeed the
critical condition in which the most civilized nations are now living. It cannot be necessary to prove to
anybody . . . that Ideas govern the world, or throw into chaos; in other
words, that all social mechanism rests upon [mere] Opinions. The great
political and moral crisis that societies are now undergoing . . . arise[s]
out of intellectual anarchy. . . . Now, the existing disorder is
abundantly accounted for by the [incongruous co-]existence, all at once, of
three incompatible philosophies, --the theological, the metaphysical, and the
positive. Any one of these might alone secure some sort of social order; but
while the three co-exist, it is impossible. . . . The positive philosophy has
hitherto intervened only to examine both [the theological and metaphysical
philosophies], and both are abundantly discredited by the process [of this
examination]. It is time now to be doing something more effective, without
wasting our forces in needless controversy. It is time to complete the vast
intellectual operation begun by Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo, by
constructing a system of general ideas which must henceforth prevail among
the human race. This is the way to put an end to the revolutionary crisis
which is tormenting the civilized nations of the world. |
