One universal
law that Comte saw at work in all sciences he called the 'law of three phases'. It is by his statement of this law that he is best known in the English-speaking world; namely, that society has gone through three phases: Theological, Metaphysical, and Scientific. To the last of these he also gave the name "
Positive," because of the
polysemous connotations of that word.
The
Theological phase was seen from the perspective of
19th century France as preceding the
Enlightenment, in which man's place in society and society's restrictions upon man were referenced to God. Man blindly believed in whatever he was taught by his ancestors.He believed in a supernatural power.
Fetishism played a significant role during this time. By the "Metaphysical" phase, he referred not to the
Metaphysics of
Aristotle or other ancient Greek philosophers. Rather, the idea was rooted in the problems of French society subsequent to the
revolution of
1789. This Metaphysical phase involved the justification of
universal rights as being on a vauntedly higher plane than the authority of any human ruler to countermand, although said rights were not referenced to the sacred beyond mere metaphor. This is why this stage is known as the stage of investigation, as they started reasoning and questioning although no solid evidence was laid. What he announced by his term of the Scientific phase, which came into being after the failure of the revolution and of
Napoleon, was that people could find solutions to social problems and bring them into force despite the proclamations of
human rights or prophecy of
the will of God. Science started to answer questions in full stretch. In this regard he was similar to
Karl Marx and
Jeremy Bentham. For its time, this idea of a Scientific phase was considered up-to-date, although from a later standpoint it is too derivative of
classical physics and
academic history. Comte's
law of three stages was one of the first theories of the
social evolutionism.
The other universal law he called the 'encyclopedic law'. By combining these laws, Comte developed a systematic and hierarchical classification of all sciences, including inorganic physics (
astronomy, earth science and
chemistry) and organic physics (
biology and for the first time,
physique sociale, later renamed
sociologie).
This idea of a special science—not the humanities, not
metaphysics—for the social was prominent in the 19th century and not unique to Comte. The ambitious—many would say grandiose—way that Comte conceived of it, however,
was unique.
Comte saw this new science,
sociology, as the last and greatest of all sciences, one that would include all other sciences, and which would integrate and relate their findings into a cohesive whole.
Comte’s explanation of the Positive philosophy introduced the important relationship between theory, practice and human understanding of the world. On page 27 of the 1855 printing of
Harriet Martineau’s translation of
The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, we see his observation that, “If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts can not be observed without the guidance of some theory.s 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.
(Comte, A. b(1974 reprint). The positive philosophy of Auguste Comte freely translated and condensed by Harriet Martineau.
New York, NY: AMS Press. (Original work published in 1855, New York, NY: Calvin Blanchard, p. 27.b)
He coined the word "altruism" to refer to what he believed to be a moral obligation of individuals to serve others and place their interests above one's own.s He opposed the idea of individual rights, maintaining that they were not consistent with this supposed ethical obligation (Catechisme Positiviste
).
In Comte's lifetime, his work was sometimes viewed skeptically because he had elevated Positivism to a religion and had named himself the Pope of Positivism. He coined the term "sociology" to denote the new science of society. He had earlier used the expression, "social physics," to refer to the positive science of society; but because others, notably the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet, had begun to use that term in a different meaning, Comte felt the need to invent the neologism, "sociology," a hybrid of the Latin "socius
" ("ally") and the Greek "λόγος" (logos<i>, "word").
Comte is generally regarded as the first Western sociologist (
Ibn Khaldun having preceded him in the East by nearly four centuries). Comte's emphasis on the interconnectedness of social elements was a forerunner of modern
functionalism. Nevertheless, as with many others of Comte's time, certain elements of his work are now viewed as eccentric and unscientific, and his grand vision of sociology as the centerpiece of all the sciences has not come to fruition.
His emphasis on a quantitative, mathematical basis for decision-making remains with us today. It is a foundation of the modern notion of Positivism, modern quantitative statistical analysis, and business decision-making. His description of the continuing cyclical relationship between theory and practice is seen in modern business systems of Total Quality Management and Continuous Quality Improvement where advocates describe a continuous cycle of theory and practice through the four-part cycle of plan, do, check, and act. Despite his advocacy of quantitative analysis, Comte saw a limit in its ability to help explain social phenomena.
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