It can be
asked whether Auguste Comte (and Positivism) can be considered useful for
today’s issues – political, philosophical, social. It’s a very interesting
question, whose answer is manifold. First of all, it’s not clear at all what is
“Positivism”; second, Comtean ideas are not known, so it’s quite difficult to
argue if they are useful; third, there is the problem of how to “use” “ancient”
philosophies today.
The first
problem involves the fact that the word “Positivism” is a very misleading one,
referring to individuals, groups, social and intellectual movements etc., some
of them so different one to another that is hard to consider them having
something in common other than the label “Positivism”. In a study published
more than 30 years ago (Positivism and
Sociology), Peter Halfpenny distinguished 12 different meanings to such expression.
For
example, there is the philosophical – and religious – Positivism, which is the
oeuvre of Comte, who initiate his thoughts in science and philosophy of
sciences, then passed to the foundation of the social science – “Sociology” –
and, then, founded a secular religion, the “Religion of Humanity”. There is
also the Sociological Positivism, which owes very much to Comtean’s one, but is
quite different from it: the works of Emile Durkheim and his French
Sociological School is the best example of it.
But the
most popular versions of Positivism, especially in the Angle-Saxon world, are
those strictly related to the philosophy of science and to some very empiricist
version of it. The ideas of the Vienna Circle, also known as Logical
Empiricism, also known as Logical Positivism, also known as Neo-Positivism, are
this third branch of “Positivism”. Developed during the 1920-1930’s by philosophers,
physicists, mathematicians and other natural scientists like Otto Neurath,
Rudolph Carnap etc., they intended to draw a clearcut line between science and
metaphysics. According to them, every statement which cannot be reducible to a
matter of fact cannot be considered meaningful, despite it can be considered an
expression of feelings: what is reducible to matters of fact (and, so,
meaningful) is scientific and acceptable; what’s not, is metaphysical and must
be proscribed from the true philosophical reasoning.
Such order
of reflexions reinforced some tendencies of Anglo-Saxon thoughts, especially in
the USA – namely, some ultra-empiricist ways of research. Broader philosophical
reasonings are frequently detached from matters of fact (because of their
abstract nature) and, so, they’re considered metaphysical; conversely, the
fact-gathering activity is among the supreme scientific ones: that’s how in the
American academy “Positivism” has become synonym of empiricism, quantitativism
– and, many times, also of anti-historicism, antiphilosophy and
“methodologism”.
Studies
concerning the relationships among Comtean ideas and the other varieties of
“Positivism” are yet to be done (despite some researchers have done some, like
Angèle Kremer-Marietti). But it’s important to note that Comte has developed a
broader philosophy and he was against the ultra-empiricist approach of science
– for he, science is above all the set of abstract
laws; his philosophical concerns lead him to a constitution of a relativistic,
humane religion, which criticized even the “scientifism”, i. e., the absolute
tendencies of today’s (and XIX Century’s) science. So, many characteristics of
the so-called Positivism are distant from Comtean Positivism, being considered
by it absolute and metaphysical.
Despite the
important differences among the many types of Positivism, the common label is
an easy way to referring to them all; by metonym, some can think that they’re
“all the same”, leading to a posture of avoiding a more (or a minimum) adequate
knowledge of each one. As Comtean
Positivism is as “Positivism” as Logical
Positivism, with the problem of conducting to a mystic (religious) version of
it, there is no need to read Comte’s works, which, above all, are extensive and
manifold: that’s the usual way for not reading Comte and, at the same time,
being capable of criticizing it. Or, as said in Portuguese: “não li e não
gostei” (“I haven’t read it and haven’t liked it”).
A third
sort of reasons for considering Comte inadequate for today is XIX Century
rooting. For being “scientificist”, “empiricist”, “antimetaphysical”,
“deterministic” etc. it would be outdated, outfashioned; his Religion of
Humanity would be just another trait to reaffirm its inadequacy for today,
revealing the crazy dreams of a madman. But those two orders of motives are
just prejudicials, for not only the deep rooting of someone in his own time has
never stopped the study of someone’s works, but also the (alleged) someone’s
problematic state of mind has never stopped the study of someone’s work. Every
day the ideas of philosophers and thinkers of different times are studied, not
only in Philosophy and History of Ideas, but also as a means of comprehending
today’s ideas and searching for new ideas and understandings: that’s why we
study the books written by Plato onwards (and thinkers even more ancient) or
the ideas of thinkers of other civilizations (as Anthropology does).
If the time
distance is not a real problem, the (again: alleged) craziness of some thinker
is even a minor problem. We could multiply the examples of thinkers, in all
areas of human activities, who suffered of many mental illnesses, but only one
name can end all discussions: Nietzsche was a perfect mental sickman, but not
only no one tells his philosophy is not worthy of being studied, as his mental
illness is no (moral, intellectual, logical) obstacle to study his philosophy.
As it
concerns Comte, at the age of 30 he had a nervous breakdown, due to familiar
troubles; he took two years to be healthy again, but that was his only episode
of “mental illness”. What happens is that from 1848 on he developed his
“Religion of Humanity”, against the main philosophical and scientific trends of
his time; the very words he used, beginning with “Religion”, but also “cult”,
“dogma”, “catechism”, “priest” etc., are proofs of the religious character of
his late work, but none of them are proofs of dementia, craziness or anything
similar. The question is that his religion was a general system of morality,
ruling individual and collective behavior, based on secular, humane,
relativistic basis. Of course, for Comte, “religion” and “theology” are not synonyms – and that’s one of the
reasons for confusion. (Another source of confusion, not exactly innocent, is
the reaffirmation of scientistic, absolute ethos, which is reaffirmed event
today, even with the name of “Positivism”.)
We just
examined three reasons why Comte is not studied today; all of them are based on
prejudices and confusions, resulting in that his works are not even read. But
what should we expect from that reading, after all?
Far from
suggesting all the possibilities, we present below a non-exhaustive list of aspects
Comtean thinking is very interesting for today.
1)
Affirmation
of importance of a balanced development, taking care of the environment
2)
Autonomy
of civil society vis-à-vis the State
3)
Complete
and radical humanism; secular ethics
4)
Comprehensive,
all-encompassing (“holistic”) perspective on society and the human being
5)
Conception
of subjective immortality
6)
Concomitant
affirmation of criteria of social justice and individual responsability
7)
Critics
of individualism, in all its forms (methodological, theoretical and moral
individualism, methodological, theoretical and moral egoism)
8)
Epistemology
and Philosophy of Sciences
9)
Freedoms
of thought, expression, reunion and so on
10)
Importance
of ideas and values in social life
11)
Perspective
that combines the universal and the particular
12)
Perspective
that goes beyond traditional dichotomies: order-progress, materialism-idealism,
agent-structure
13)
Reenchantment
of the world
14)
Role
of public opinion on public affairs
15)
Scientific
perspective on reality
16)
Social
utopia
17)
Valorization
of subjectivity in the knowledge (scientific, artistic, philosophic ones)
All those
aspects are presented in all Comte’s works, especially in his late career ones
– precisely those of his religious phase: System of positive policy, Positivist
catechism, Appeal to conservative, A general view of Positivism, and also his
extensive, 8-volume correspondence.
In the last
two decades or so, a number of academic researchers, mainly French, has
explored many aspects of Comtean thought: Angèle Kremer-Marietti, Emmanuel
Lazinier, Julliete Grange, Annie Petit, Michel Bourdeau, Laurent Fedi, Mike
Gane, Mary Pickering, Olaf Simons, Sérgio Tiski, Gustavo Biscaia de Lacerda –
and many more. In the internet, it’s possible to know something on Comte and
Comtean Positivism in some sites: Maison
d’Auguste Comte (http://www.augustecomte.org),
Auguste Comte et le Positivisme (http://membres.multimania.fr/clotilde)
and, more recently, Positivism (http://positivists.org/).
