Sociology of Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte (1798-1857) is best known today as the father of French positivist thought. Positivism
may be described as either a philosophical system or as a philosophy of history. As a philosophy of
history, Comte’s work appears as one of the first general histories of modern science. It was Comte who
first coined the expression "sociology." His political philosophy was a bold attempt to reconcile science,
religion, and the ideals of 1789 with the doctrine of counter-revolution of his own time. His influence on
19th century thought was immense, although he is almost always overshadowed by Marx and Darwin.
Positivist societies were formed in England and France and Comtean churches appeared in far off Brazil.
The novelist George Eliot (1819-1880) and philosopher John Stuart Mill were positivists and in France
the regime of Louis Napoleon, established in 1851, was also influenced by Comte.
Auguste Comte was born at Montpellier, France in 1798. Although his family was a devout Catholic one,
Comte announced, at the age of fourteen that he had "naturally ceased believing in God." At the same
time, he abandoned the royalist sympathies of his family and became a republican. As a result, the
young Comte’s relationship with his family was strained throughout his relatively short life he died in
1857 and is buried in Pêre-Lachaise. As a child, Comte was coddled by his mother. His father and sister,
meanwhile, always complained of ill-health. Later in his life, Comte would call his family "covetous and
hypocritical." He complained, rather vocally at times, that because of the ill-health of his father and
sister, the family rarely had enough money to support his literary career.
There are two outstanding events in Comte’s early life which help to explain the nature of his more
mature thought. The first was his attendance at the École Polytechnique Founded in 1794 at the height
of the radical phase of the French Revolution, the École Polytechnique trained military engineers and
was quickly transformed into a school for the advanced sciences. Under Napoleon, it grew to become
the foremost French scientific institution. For Comte, however, the École Polytechnique became a model
for a future society ordered and sustained by new elite of scientists and engineers (enter the
technocrat). In 1816, Comte led a protest of students against the manners of one of the tutors and was
expelled. He spent a few months with his parents and then returned to Paris. It was in Paris that the
eighteen year old Comte first encountered a group of radical French thinkers which included the Comte
de Volney (1757-1820) and Georges Cabanis (1757-1808) and who were known collectively as the
"ideologues." Comte also read the political economists Adam Smith (1723-1790) and J. B. SAY (1767-
1832) as well as histories by WILLIAM ROBERTSON (1721-1793) and David Hume (1711-1776). Of
greatest importance, however, was Comte’s encounter with Condorcet, whom Comte would later call
"my immediate predecessor." Comte was quite taken with Condorcet’s Sketch for a Historical Picture of
the Progress of the Human Mind, an optimistic philosophy of history which posited the various stages of
history culminating in social, political and economic progress.
The second great event in Comte’s life took place in 1817. It was in that year that Comte became the
secretary to the French utopian socialist Saint-Simon a relationship which lasted until 1824 when it
ended in bitterness. The relationship between the elder Saint-Simon and the younger Comte is rather
difficult to unravel. Both men were responding to the same challenges of an age of revolution. What
they sought was a science of human behavior, what Saint-Simon called a "social physiology." The elder
Saint-Simon was the first to announce the Law of the Three Stages. He also argued for the creation of
new industrial-scientific elite.
Comte turned out to be far more encyclopedic than his master. Comte saw that it was necessary for
each science to develop its own methodology. He also perceived that such a development is revealed
historically, that is, it came with the progress of the human mind. Hopefully, Comte’s debt to Condorcet
is clear.
After the break with Saint-Simon in 1824, Comte supported himself by tutoring in mathematics. He
married in 1825 but the union proved unhappy and ended in separation. Beginning in 1826, he also
began to lecture on his new philosophy to a private audience composed of outstanding French thinkers.
It was from these lectures that Comte developed his magnum opus, the six volumes Course of Positive
Philosophy, which was published between 1830 and 1842. In 1845, Comte met Clothilde de Vaux and
fell deeply in love. This marriage, like the first, was short-lived as his wife died within one year. Following
Clothilde’s death, an event which brought Comte close to insanity, he began to emphasize a new
universal religion of humanity. He managed to publish two more works, The System of Positive Polity
(1851-54) and The Catechism of Positive Religion (1852) but neither work captured his audience as had
the Course of Positive Philosophy. In 1857, worn out from his intellectual labors and personal tragedies,
Comte died in wretchedness and isolation. What he left behind was his monumental attempt to
synthesize many of the most important intellectual trends of his own day.
Comte’s positive philosophy emanated from his historical study of the progress of the human mind. His
sole interest, however, was the western European mind and by mind, he meant the sciences, especially
astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology. You may wonder why he did not include mathematics. For
Comte, mathematics was a tool and not a science.
The history of the sciences shows that each science goes through three successive stage: the theological,
the metaphysical and the positive. Progress through the three stages was not only inevitable but
irreversible. Progress is also asymptotic -- that is, we always approach, but never obtain, perfect positive
knowledge. Comte’s view of each of the three stages is as follows:
[1] The theological -- man views nature as having a will of its own. This stage also contains three stages.
(i) Animism: objects have their own will,
(ii) Polytheism: divine wills impose themselves on objects and
(iii) Monotheism: the will of God imposes itself on objects.
[2] Metaphysical -- thought substitutes abstractions for a personal will. Here, causes and forces replace
desires. The world is one great entity in which Nature prevails. And finally [3] Positive -- the search for
absolute knowledge, the first cause, is abandoned. In such a scheme, each stage corresponds to a
specific form of mental development. There is also a corresponding material development.
Comte believed that historical development revealed a matching movement of ideas and institutions. In
the COURSE OF POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY, Comte attempted to demonstrate that each science is
necessarily dependent on the previous science, that is, science can only be understood historically as the
process of greater perfection. For example, before there can be an effective physics, there must be
astronomy. Furthermore, the history of the sciences reveals the law that as the phenomenon become
more complex, so to do the methods of those sciences. In contrast to Descartes who saw only one right
method of inquiry -- the geometrical method -- Comte believed that each science develops by logic
proper to itself, a logic that is revealed only by the historical study of that science. Comte, of course,
claimed to go beyond Descartes -- after all, hadn’t everybody else done the same thing? Like Vico,
Herder, Hegel and Condorcet, Comte studied the mind historically. The mind can only be explained in
terms of what it has done in the past.
The final science which Comte claimed to have discovered and one which had not yet entered its
positive stage was sociology. It was sociology, he claimed, that would give ultimate meaning to all the
other sciences -- it was the one science which held the others together. Only sociology would reveal that
man is a developing creature who moves through three stages in each of his sciences. With this
profound assertion, Comte argued that we could finally understand the true logic of mind. And in the
47th lesson of the fourth volume of the Course of Positive Philosophy, Comte proposed the word
sociology for this new science rather than the current expression, physique sociale (or social physics).
Sociology was divided into two distinct parts. On the one hand, there was social statics, that is, the study
of socio-political systems relative to their existing level of civilization. On the other hand, there was
social dynamics which entailed the study of the three stages. Statics and dynamics then, are branches of
the science of sociology. Comte also added a division between order and progress. Order exists when
there is stability in fundamental principles and when the majority of the members of society hold similar
opinions. Progress, on the other hand, was identified with the period following the Protestant
Reformation up to the French Revolution. What was now needed, Comte told his readers, was a
synthesis of order and progress in a higher, scientific form. Once a science of society had been
developed, opinions would once again be shared and society would be stable. Once there was true
social knowledge, people would not be as willing to fight over religious or political opinions. Liberty of
conscience, Comte declared, is as out of place in social thought as in physics, and true freedom in both
areas lies in the rational submission to scientific laws. The gradual awareness and understanding of
these laws is what Comte meant by the word progress.
Comte’s sociology was overly intertwined with his own ideas of the correct polity. In his view, society
had broken down as a result of the French Revolution. The Revolution was a good thing -- the Revolution
had also been necessary because the ancien regime -- based as it was on obsolete theological
knowledge -- no longer served as a respectable basis for shared opinions. It was the progress of the
sciences that had undermined this basis. The Revolution offered no grounds for the reorganization of
society because it was negative -- that is, the Revolution destroyed the old without creating the new.
The task then, was to provide a new religion and a new faith. And, of course, a new clergy was needed, a
higher clergy. To replace the Catholic clergy Comte proposed scientific-industrial elite that would
announce the invariable laws of a new social order. The ancien regime and its destruction by the French
Revolution had to be synthesized and made meaningful by a new clergy of elites: the technocrats. This
was absolutely necessary to meet the problems brought about by the collapse of the ancien regime as
well as those problems created by industrial society. This insight, religious in nature and intuitive in
form, was then reformulated by Comte and his followers in terms of what they were to call a "positive
science."
And while he was busy creating the "positive science" he also set about to construct a "positive religion."
One product of this religion was the calendar of positivist saints. This calendar illustrated his shift away
from philosophical and scientific interests to what could only be called a form of mysticism. As to be
expected, Comte appointed himself as the high priest of the new religion of humanity. The new religion
had its holy days, its calendar of saints -- Adam Smith, Frederick the Great, Dante, Shakespeare and
others -- and its positive catechism. It was a non-theistic, atheistic religion, a religion of man and society.
The goal of Comte’s positive polity was never an affluent society. Affluence meant very little to Comte.
Instead, what he sought, indeed, what he spent his entire career trying to obtain, was moral order. The
positive religion urged everyone "to live for others." Comte perceived the existence of class conflict -- he
understood the selfish character of the capitalist. He wished to see an end to class conflict but not by
the destruction of one class by another, as Marx had suggested. Instead, Comte sought to moralize one
and all, a cure for humanity not for one class at the expense of another.
It is nearly impossible today to fully appreciate the vast influence of positivism as it existed more than a
century ago. During the Second Empire in France, Comte was known and remained highly esteemed.
Because of the elasticity and comprehensiveness of Comte’s thought, his reputation worked its way
outside France as well. But, like the utopian socialist Saint-Simon, and his religious devotees, the Saint-
Simonians, Comte’s fame rests securely on the unflagging effort of his most ardent disciple, Emile Littré
(1801-1881). It was Littré, a French lexicographer and philosopher, who refused to follow Comte into the
nebulous gray area of his positivist religion. He considered this part of positivism to be the product of
Comte’s tired and disturbed mind. However, in 1867, Littré founded The Positivist Review. It was in this
journal that Littré maintained that the real value of positivism lay in showing that philosophy could
subject itself, with profit, to the same methods as the positive sciences. He accepted Comte’s notion
that social improvement depended on the advancement of the sciences. Positivism offered the only
hope for the future development of society along rational lines. Positivism directed human efforts
toward work, toward social equity and toward international peace by means of four things: industry, the
diffusion of science, the cultivation of the fine arts and the moral improvement of man.
The dominant motive of Comte’s positivism was not speculative but practical. His purpose was for him,
most clear -- the reformation of the social order. "The object of all my labor," Comte wrote, "has been to
re-establish in society something spiritual that is capable of counter-balancing the influence of the
ignoble materialism in which we are at present submerged." With this statement in mind, Comte
continues the 18th and 19th century preoccupation with human liberation -- whether the Church,
tyranny, materialism or government, man must liberate himself
According to him Sociology is considered as a unifying discipline based upon positivistic method
(observation and experimentation) contributing to the evolution of a natural moral order in society.
__________________
The kingdom of the heavens and the earth belongs to Allah. He indeed is able to do all things. -Quran,
Al-Imran, Surah 3:189
Somayya
For Kierkegaard's theory of the three stages, see Three stages of life of Søren Kierkegaard.
The law of three stages is an idea developed by Auguste Comte in his work The Course in Positive
Philosophy. It states that society as a whole, and each particular science, develops through three
mentally conceived stages: (1) the theological stage, (2) the metaphysical stage, and (3) the positive
stage.
Contents
The progression of the three stages of sociology
edit
(1) The Theological stage refers to the appeal to personified deities. During the earlier stages, people
believed that all the phenomena of nature were the creation of the divine or supernatural. Adults and
children failed to discover the natural causes of various phenomena and hence attributed them to a
supernatural or divine power.[1][unreliable source?] Comte broke this stage into 3 sub-stages:
1A. Fetishism – Fetishism was the primary stage of the theological stage of thinking. Throughout this
stage, primitive people believe that inanimate objects have living spirits in them, also known as animism.
People worship inanimate objects like trees, stones, a pieces of wood, volcanic eruptions, etc.[1]
Through this practice, people believe that all things root from a supernatural source.[2]
1B. Polytheism – At one point, Fetishism began to bring about doubt in the minds of its believers. As a
result, people turned towards polytheism: the explanation of things through the use of many Gods.
Primitive people believe that all natural forces are controlled by different Gods; a few examples would
be the God of water, God of rain, God of fire, God of air, God of earth, etc.[1]
1C. Monotheism – Monotheism means believing in one God or God in one; attributing all to a single,
supreme deity. Primitive people believe a single theistic entity is responsible for the existence of the
universe.[1]
(2) The Metaphysical stage is an extension of the theological stage. It refers to explanation by
impersonal abstract concepts. People often try to characterize God as an abstract being.[1] They believe
that an abstract power or force guides and determines events in the world. Metaphysical thinking
discards belief in a concrete God. For example: In Classical Hindu Indian society, the principle of the
transmigration of the soul, the conception of rebirth, and notions of pursuant were largely governed by
metaphysical uphill.[1]
(3) The Positivity stage, also known as the scientific stage, refers to scientific explanation based on
observation, experiment, and comparison. Positive explanations rely upon a distinct method, the
scientific method, for their justification. Today people attempt to establish cause-and-effect
relationships. Positivism is a purely intellectual way of looking at the world; as well, it also emphasizes
observation and classification of data and facts. This is the highest, most evolved behavior according to
Comte.[1]
Comte, however, was conscious of the fact that the three stages of thinking may or do coexist in the
same society or the same mind and may not always be successive.
Comte proposed a hierarchy of the sciences based on historical sequence, with areas of knowledge
passing through these stages in order of complexity. The simplest and most remote areas of knowledge
—mechanical or physical—are the first to become scientific. These are followed by the more complex
sciences, those considered closest to us.
The sciences, then, according to Comte's "law", developed in this order: Mathematics; Astronomy;
Physics; Chemistry; Biology; Sociology. A science of society is thus the "Queen science" in Comte's
hierarchy as it would be the most fundamentally complex. Since Comte saw social science as an
observation of human behavior and knowledge, his definition of sociology included observing
humanity’s development of science itself. Because of this, Comte presented this introspective field of
study as the science above all others. Sociology would both complete the body of positive sciences by
discussing humanity as the last unstudied scientific field and would link the fields of science together in
human history, showing the "intimate interrelation of scientific and social development".[3]
To Comte, the law of three stages made the development of sociology inevitable and necessary. Comte
saw the formation of his law as an active use of sociology, but this formation was dependent on other
sciences reaching the positive stage; Comte’s three-stage law would not have evidence for a positive
stage without the observed progression of other sciences through these three stages. Thus, sociology
and its first law of three stages would be developed after other sciences were developed out of the
metaphysical stage, with the observation of these developed sciences becoming the scientific evidence
used in a positive stage of sociology. This special dependence on other sciences contributed to Comte’s
view of sociology being the most complex. It also explains sociology being the last science to be
developed.
Comte saw the results of his three-stage law and sociology as not only inevitable but good. In Comte’s
eyes, the positive stage was not only the most evolved but also the stage best for mankind. Through the
continuous development of positive sciences, Comte hoped that humans would perfect their knowledge
of the world and make real progress to improve the welfare of humanity.[4] He acclaimed the positive
stage as the "highest accomplishment of the human mind" [4] and as having "natural superiority" [5]
over the other, more primitive stages.
Overall, Comte saw his law of three stages as the start of the scientific field of sociology as a positive
science. He believed this development was the key to completing positive philosophy and would finally
allow humans to study every observable aspect of the universe. For Comte, sociology’s human-centered
studies would relate the fields of science to each other as progressions in human history and make
positive philosophy one coherent body of knowledge. Comte presented the positive stage as the final
state of all sciences, which would allow human knowledge to be perfected, leading to human progress.
Critiques of the law
edit
Historian William Whewell wrote "Mr. Comte's arrangement of the progress of science as successively
metaphysical and positive, is contrary to history in fact, and contrary to sound philosophy in
principle."[6] The historian of science H. Floris Cohen has made a significant effort to draw the modern
eye towards this first debate on the foundations of positivism.[7]
In contrast, within an entry dated early October 1838 Charles Darwin wrote in one of his then private
notebooks that "M. Comte's idea of a theological state of science [is a] grand idea
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FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIOLOGY
Positivism and Its Critique
by
LotusArise
July 24, 2022
1 Comment
Many of the founding fathers of sociology believed that it would be possible to create a science of
society based on the same principles and procedures as the natural sciences such as chemistry and
biology. This approach is known as positivism.
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who is credited with inventing the term sociology and regarded as one of
the founders of the discipline, maintained that the application of the methods and assumptions of the
natural sciences would produce a ‘positive science of society’.
He believed that this would reveal that the evolution of society followed ‘invariable laws’. It would show
that the behaviour of man was governed by principles of cause and effect which were just as invariable
as the behaviour of matter, the subject of the natural sciences.
The positivist approach makes the following assumptions:
The behaviour of man, like the behaviour of matter, can be objectively measured. Just as the behaviour
of matter can be quantified by measures such as weight, temperature and pressure. Methods of
“objective measurement” can be devised for human behaviour. Such measurement is essential to
explain behaviour.
For example, in order to explain the reaction of a particular chemical to heat, it is necessary to provide
exact measurements of temperature, weight and so on.
With the aid of such measurements it will be possible to accurately observe the behaviour of matter and
produce a statement of cause and effect.
This statement might read A+B=C where A is a quantity of matter, B a degree of heat and C a volume of
gas. Once it has been shown that the matter in question always reacts in the same way under fixed
conditions, a theory can be devised to explain its behaviour.
From a positivist viewpoint such methods and assumptions are applicable to human behaviour.
Observations of behaviour based on objective measurement will make it possible to produce statements
of cause and effect. Theories may then be devised to explain observed behaviour.
The positivist approach in sociology places particular emphasis on behaviour that can be directly
observed. It argues that factors which are not directly observable, such as meanings, feelings and
purposes, are not particularly important and can be misleading.
For example, if the majority of adult members of society enter into marriage and produce children,
these facts can be observed and quantified. They therefore form reliable data. However, the range of
meanings that members of society give to these activities, their purposes for marriage and procreation
are not directly observable. Even if they could be accurately measured, they may well divert attention
from the real cause of behaviour. One individual may believe he entered marriage because he was
lonely, another because he was in love, a third because it was the ‘thing to do’ and a fourth because he
wished to produce offspring. Reliance on this type of data for explanation assumes that individuals know
the reasons for marriage. This can obscure the real cause of their behaviour.
The positivists’ emphasis on observable ‘facts’ is due largely to the belief that human behaviour can be
explained in much the same way as the behaviour of matter. Natural scientists do not inquire into the
meanings and purposes of matter for the obvious reason of their absence. Atoms and molecules do not
act in terms of meanings; they simply react to external stimuli. Thus if heat, an external stimulus, is
applied to matter, that matter will react. The job of the natural scientist is to observe, measure, and
then explain that reaction. The positivist approach to human social behaviour applies a similar logic.
Men react to external stimuli and their behaviour can be explained in terms of this reaction. For
example Man and Women enter into marriage and produce children in response to the demands of
society. Society requires such behaviour for its survival and its members simply respond to this
requirement. The meanings and purposes they attach to this behaviour are largely inconsequential.
Systems theory in sociology adopts a positivist approach. Once behaviour is seen as a response to some
external stimulus, such as economic forces or the requirements of the social system, the methods and
assumptions of the natural sciences appear appropriate to the study of man.
Marxism has often been regarded as a positivist approach since it can be argued that it sees human
behaviour as a reaction to the stimulus of the economic infrastructure.
Functionalism has been viewed in a similar light. The behaviour of members of society an be
seen as a response to the functional prerequisites of the social system.
The study of society and social phenomena till the middle of the nineteenth century was made mostly
on the basis of speculation, logic, theological thinking and rational analysis. August Comte, a French
philosopher, described these methods inadequate and insufficient in the study of social life. In 1848, he
proposed positive method in the field of social research. He maintained that social phenomena should
be studied not through logic or theological principles or metaphysical theories but rather in society itself
and in the structure of social relations. For example, he explained poverty in terms of the social forces
that dominate society. He described this method of study as scientific. Comte considered scientific
method, called positivism, as the most appropriate tool of social research. This new methodology
rejected speculation and philosophical approach and focused on gathering of empirical data and became
positivistic methodology, using similar methods as employed by natural sciences. By the 1930s,
positivism came to flourish in the USA and gradually other countries also followed the trend.
Critique to Positivism:
Comte’s positivism was criticized both from within and outside the positivist domain. Within positivism,
a branch called logical positivism was developed in early twentieth century which claimed that science is
both logical and also based on observable facts and that the truth of any statement lies in its verification
through sensory experience.
Out side positivism developed schools of thought like symbolic interactionism, phenomenology and
ethnomethodology, etc. These schools questioned the positivist methodology and its perception of
social reality.
But Positivism came to be accepted more in the 1950s and 1960s onwards by the academics. Today
some writers refer to the emergence of a new stage of research, the post-empiricist research marked by
the notion that the scientific method is not the only source of knowledge, truth and validity. Thus,
today, sociological methodology is no longer based on positivist methodology as in the past but it has
become a body of diverse methods and techniques, all of which are perceived as valid and legitimate in
social research.
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Sociology
Positivism
Positivism
This module helps students know about the concept of Positivism in the field of sociology.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Principles of Positivism
What do you mean by Positivism?
Positivism and Ones Thoughts and Emotions
In the field of philosophy, Positivism generally refers to any empiricist system that confines itself to the
data of experience of certain metaphysical speculations. Earlier, this term was first introduced by French
Philosopher Sir Auguste Comte in 1798.
This module will discuss the various aspects and concepts of Positivism, why a person should be positive
in life, and what is the effect of positivity on an individual’s life and day-to-day habits.
Positivism as a philosophy and a movement originally took shape because of a French Philosopher
named Comte, who also named and structured the field of sociology. It eventually progressed through
multiple phases known as empirio-criticism, logical positivism, and logical empiricism, combining it with
the previously existing analytic philosophy and calling it Positivism.
Principles of Positivism
Fact- People believe more in factual content than in bluffs and theories that have no proof.
Laws which are Scientific – Laws that are used for prediction and science-based
Atomism – A concept or a study can be simplified by breaking it down into smaller fragments or parts.
Naturalism- The principles of Nature and sciences must be taken into consideration.
Phenomenalism- Valid information is only provided by observed phenomena.
Nominalism- Scientific terms have unique and separate meanings. The presence of a term does not
imply that the thing it describes exists.
What do you mean by Positivism?
Positivism in the field of sociology is defined as a study of an approach to the study of society that
specifically relies on a piece of evidence-based science to reveal the true nature of the functions of a
society.
Positivism can also relate to an analytical technique based on strict empiricism that entails collecting
measurements, counting objects, and doing statistical analysis. It is most commonly used as a
philosophical foundation for scientific inquiry.
The phrase, Positivism, relates to the principle of seeking facts without any regard for hypotheses. Facts
are gathered through collection or experiments and can be grouped in ways that make them more
understandable through basic processes or procedures.
Forms of Positivism
Despite the fact that positivism has subsequently been demonstrated to be insufficient for studying the
whole spectrum of human experience, it has had a great impact on and continues to influence the
substantial use of experimentation and statistics in social science. Forms of Positivism include-
Social Positivism that was described by Comte showed the evolution of people.
Logical Positivism was described by Vienna Circle and Von Mises
Critical Positivism was described by Ernst Mach who focused on the experience that was witnessed
immediately.
Three Cultural Stages of Society
Sir Auguste Comte created the concept of three phases in his book, The Course in Positive Philosophy. It
says that civilization as a whole, as well as any individual science, progresses through three stages (also
called as the Three Cultural Stages of Society)
(1) The Stage of Theology – The appeal to personified deities is referred to as the theological stage.
People used to assume that all natural events were the result of divine or supernatural intervention.
Adults and children alike were unable to determine the natural explanations of many events, therefore
they attributed them to a superhuman or heavenly force.
(2) The Stage of Metaphysics – The theological stage is followed by the metaphysical stage. It refers to
the use of impersonal abstractions to explain anything. People frequently attempt to define God as an
impersonal being.
(3) The Stage of Positivity – Is a term that refers to a scientific explanation that is based on observation,
experimentation, and comparison. Positive explanations are justified using a different technique, the
scientific method.
Positivism and One’s Thoughts and Emotions
Joy, love, and inspiration are feelings connected with positivity. A person in this mental state chooses
constructive and positive attitudes and emotions while avoiding negative and miserable sentiments. This
may be not easy at first, but with a little practice, it becomes achievable.
Thoughts connected with Positivism include courage, self-esteem, assurance, success, the strength of
character, and consciousness. Such a person’s mentality prefers to think in terms of “I can do it”,
“Everything is simple and possible”, and “I am trying and will surely do my best to improve myself and
my life.”
Positivism in Business
Managers and designers must comprehend and anticipate what individuals desire and want to
accomplish. That entails researching individual consumers and groups, producing products and services
to meet their demands, and closely monitoring consumer demand patterns. Customer-driven marketing
is another term for this type of marketing management.
Positivism is a collection of rules or standards that govern how a business should operate. According to
the positivist management style, the ultimate purpose of a firm is to delight its consumers. For this to
happen, products and services must be designed to meet the needs of those customers.
Features of Positivism
It helps give validity and purpose to research.
The point of Positivism is to uncover the laws that govern human behaviour.
It corresponds to the theory of truth.
Research is done by working with observable social reality.
It believes that the social world can be observed by collecting objective facts.
Influence of Positivism
Sir Auguste Comte’s Positivism influences modern society’s views on the foundations of science, cultural
evolution and progress, objectivity and truth, and history.
In detail, Sir Auguste Comte’s views have had and influenced the various categories of thought
processes in the scientific world.
Positivism is influenced by the presence of positivity in that specific field.
It believes that human nature is entirely based on social norms as society plays an important role in
shaping humans.
Conclusion
Today being positive is everything. Half the success comes one’s way if he/she is confident and positive.
Being positive helps a person and builds an aura of happiness at workstations and every field of work.
Positivism tells us the importance of providing evidence – personal judgments and perceptions are not
accepted as ‘scientific’ information. To sum it up, Positivism has had important and lasting effects on
science and economic research. But when it comes to philosophy, it has its restrictions.
A positive person will grow and achieve greatness in life
