Muda talk.com_ For lovers of social sciences, especially sociology, who doesn’t know Auguste Comte. A originator of the word “sociology” as well as the father of positivism.
As a thinker, Auguste Comte was famous for his positivism philosophy. Even so, Comte’s thinking was still influenced by the flow of naturalist philosophy. Comte compared society to the human body.
In addition, this thinker from the University of Montpellier is also famous for his three-stage legal theory. This theory discusses the three stages of the development process of people’s thinking, among others: the theological stage, metaphysical stage and the stage of positivism.
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Course of Positive Philosophy
The theory of the law of three stages, he poured in a work of 6 volumes entitled Course of Positive Philosophy. One of the contents of the Course of Positive Philosophy is about the philosophy of positivism. This philosophy later became the basic foundation of the flow of positivism.
Comte’s anxiety and concern about the condition of society became the background for the birth of Course ‘s work . For him, society needs ways and methods to achieve “Social Order”.
In the first three volumes Comte explained about the five basic sciences such as biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics and astronomy. He analyzed objectively and historically the natural sciences by summarizing its methodologies.
Meanwhile, Comte’s last three volumes explain the basics of social science. In principle, the Course of Positive Philosophy is the basis of sociology as well as the coordination of methodologically positive sciences.
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The events of the French Revolution built Comte’s awareness of the philosophy of positivism. Comte argued that society needed a new method of thinking in order to create a just society.
A systematic and measurable way of thinking, he got from science. Comte tried to develop a method of positive thinking to combine the laws of the natural sciences and the social sciences.
For him, social science, although historically has a method of observation and experimentation. It is intended that social science can analyze the development of society objectively.
With a structured method of thinking, objective facts will be born. Comte managed to comprehensively integrate the philosophical and methodological unity between the natural and social sciences.
In this work, Comte tried to show the systematic development experienced by the natural sciences. If the study of the object is dead, it is called fixed and motion, while if the object is alive, it is called anatomy or physiology.
So in the context of social science whose object of study is people’s life, it is certainly related to fixed and motion. This means that there is an order that even though it continues to move to achieve progress.
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And the key to this progress for Comte was no other way except by the method of positive thinking through knowledge of objective social phenomena.
Auguste Comte’s Three-Stage Law Theory
Auguste Comte divides people’s way of thinking in viewing social phenomena into three stages. He called the three stages the theory of social change or the three-stage legal theory. This theory consists as follows:
Theological Stage
The theological stage is the stage where people still believe in supernatural powers. At this stage, all natural phenomena and society cannot be analyzed objectively.
Strong understandings at the theological stage include polytheism and monotheism. In addition, there are other ideologies that also color such as dynamism, animism and fetishism.
Humans at this stage still believe in the power of gods and nature. More or less the theological stages as depicted in the film Hercules and the Trojan war.
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Metaphysical Stages
At this stage, humans no longer believe in supernatural things but move to abstract entities. The metaphysical stage is part of the critical process of society towards the previous stage, namely the theological stage.
People no longer think of power but they already believe in the law of causality. Society began to explore the philosophical values of a social phenomenon.
This metaphysical phase also explains phenomena such as substance, causality and accident. besides that it also discusses the essence and existence.
Stages of Positivism
At the stage of positivism, people already know science. Everything can be studied and analyzed through the five senses.
All forms of social phenomena can be analyzed scientifically and empirically. At this stage people no longer believe in supernatural and metaphysical things.
Humans at the stage of positivism can already limit themselves to the facts that occur. People have started to think critically by always placing facts, not something complete, so they must go through the basis of observation.
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Philosophy of Positivism
In principle, Auguste Comte’s positivism in his Course of Positive Philosophy tries to place knowledge as the basis for someone to judge something right or wrong. Observations of right or wrong in social phenomena according to Comte must be based on empirical, actual and physical experience.
For him the only valid source of knowledge is science that has methods and observations. He rejects all knowledge that comes from the metaphysical and supernatural.
Later, Auguste Comte’s masterpiece became the starting point for the philosophy of positivism. The flow of philosophy that believes in the basis of science based on empirical, factual and real data.
The work of Auguste Comte was praised by an English philosopher named John Stuart Mill. Even John Stuart Mill would socialize Comte’s writings in his college classes.
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Although it is not entirely true that the philosophy of positivism is the full contribution of Auguste Comte. If you ever read the work of Immanuel Kant, you will find the philosophy of rationalism.
The school of philosophy that believes that truth can only be obtained through logic, analysis of facts and results of evidence.
However, the Course of Positive Philosophy provides a clear contribution to the three stages of the process of social change. Almost certainly the development of society undergoes a theological stage, a metaphysical stage and a positivism stage.
Even through the three-stage theory of law he believes that the history of mankind, both individually
and as a whole, has developed according to the three-stage theory of law.
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The Course of Positive Philosophy was not Auguste Comte’s only work. Auguste Comte’s second work was Systeme de philosophie positive.
The work entitled Systeme de philosophie positive seems to be a turning point in his thinking about positivism. Because Auguste Comte in his writings both stated that it is not true if people completely reject the metaphysical and supernatural.
At a glance, this discussion is about Auguste Comte’s Course of Positive Philosophy. Hopefully it can be an interesting reading material for your study . Happy reading!