Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte, better known as Auguste Comte, was a French philosopher. He was a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. He is sometimes regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionSociologist
Date of Birth17 February 1798
CountryFrance
ideas world chaos
Ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos.
would-be facts different
Every science consists in the coordination of facts; if the different observations were entirely isolated, there would be no science.
real would-be looks
All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon's time, that there can be no real knowledge but that which is based on observed facts. This is incontestable, in our present advanced stage; but, if we look back to the primitive stage of human knowledge, we shall see that it must have been otherwise then. If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts cannot be observed without the guidance of some theory. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them: for the most part we could not even perceive them.
knowledge law three
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.
kings humanity atheism
To reorganize society without God or King, by the systematic culture of Humanity.
childhood illusion
Religion is an illusion of childhood, outgrown under proper education.
know-yourself improving-yourself knows
Know yourself to improve yourself.
three abstract metaphysical
Each department of knowledge passes through three stages. The theoretic stage; the theological stage and the metaphysical or abstract stage.
order goal progress
The sacred formula of positivism: love as a principle, the order as a foundation, and progress as a goal.
science sound kind
Positivism is a theory of knowledge according to which the only kind of sound knowledge available to human kind is that if science grounded in observation.
atheism destroyed replaced
Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced.
absolutes relative
Everything is relative; and only that is absolute.
knowledge-is-power
Foreknowledge is power.
analysis mathematical rational
Mathematical Analysis is... the true rational basis of the whole system of our positive knowledge.