# Course of Positive Philosophy

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Book by Auguste Comte

Course of Positive Philosophy Author Auguste Comte Original title Cours de Philosophie Positive Genre sociology Publication date 1830-1842

The ***Course of Positive Philosophy*** (*Cours de Philosophie Positive*) was a series of texts written by the French [philosopher of science](/source/Philosophy_of_science) and founding [sociologist](/source/Sociologist), [Auguste Comte](/source/Auguste_Comte), between 1830 and 1842. Within the work he unveiled the [epistemological](/source/Epistemological) perspective of [positivism](/source/Positivism). The works were translated into English by [Harriet Martineau](/source/Harriet_Martineau) and condensed to form *The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte* (1853). It has been described as a foundational text for the discipline of sociology.[1][2]

## Content

The first three volumes of the *Course* dealt chiefly with the physical sciences already in existence (mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology), whereas the latter two emphasised the inevitable coming of social science. It is in observing the circular dependence of theory and observation in science, and classifying the sciences in this way, that Comte may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term.[3] For him, the physical sciences, which were 'simple', had necessarily to arrive first, before humanity could adequately channel its efforts into the most challenging and complex "queen science" of human society itself. Comte believed that social harmony is possible only when there is intellectual harmony, which is in turn possible only when all social sciences have entered the phase of positivism, with Sociology being the last to arrive. Then everybody should be taught modern science so that they can internalize the new scientific values in their lives. His *[A General View of Positivism](/source/A_General_View_of_Positivism)* (published in English in 1865) would therefore set out to define, in more detail, the empirical goals of sociology.

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Park, Robert E. (1921). ["Sociology and the Social Sciences"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2764494). *American Journal of Sociology*. **26** (4): 401–424. [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0002-9602](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0002-9602).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** ["A Comtean Centenary"](https://dx.doi.org/10.1086/213378). *American Journal of Sociology*. **27** (4): 510–513. 1922. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1086/213378](https://doi.org/10.1086%2F213378). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0002-9602](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0002-9602).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Bourdeau, Michel, ["Auguste Comte"](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/comte/), *[The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](/source/The_Stanford_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy)* (Summer 2011 Edition)

v t e Positivism Perspectives Antihumanism Empiricism Rationalism Scientism Declinations Legal positivism Logical positivism Positivist school Postpositivism Sociological positivism Machian positivism (empirio-criticism) Rankean historical positivism Polish positivism Russian Machism Principal concepts Consilience Demarcation Evidence Induction Justification Pseudoscience Critique of metaphysics Unity of science Verificationism Antitheses Antipositivism Confirmation holism Critical theory Falsifiability Geisteswissenschaft Hermeneutics Historicism Historism Human science Humanities Metaphysics Methodological dualism Problem of induction Reflectivism Related paradigm shifts in the history of science Non-Euclidean geometry (1830s) Uncertainty principle (1927) Related topics Behavioralism Post-behavioralism Critical rationalism Criticism of science Epistemology anarchism idealism nihilism pluralism realism Holism Instrumentalism Modernism Naturalism in literature Nomothetic–idiographic distinction Objectivity in science Operationalism Phenomenalism Philosophy of science Deductive-nomological model Ramsey sentence Sense-data theory Qualitative research Relationship between religion and science Sociology Social science Philosophy Structural functionalism Structuralism Structuration theory Positivist-related debate Method Methodenstreit (1890s) Werturteilsstreit (1909–1959) Positivismusstreit (1960s) Fourth Great Debate in international relations (1980s) Science wars (1990s) Contributions The Course in Positive Philosophy (1830) A General View of Positivism (1848) Critical History of Philosophy (1869) Idealism and Positivism (1879–1884) The Analysis of Sensations (1886) The Logic of Modern Physics (1927) Language, Truth, and Logic (1936) The Two Cultures (1959) The Universe in a Nutshell (2001) Proponents Richard Avenarius A. J. Ayer Berlin Circle / Vienna Circle Alexander Bogdanov Percy Williams Bridgman Auguste Comte Eugen Dühring Émile Durkheim Stephen Hawking Ernst Laas Ernst Mach Criticism Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909) History and Class Consciousness (1923) The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934) The Poverty of Historicism (1936) World Hypotheses (1942) Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1951) Truth and Method (1960) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) Conjectures and Refutations (1963) One-Dimensional Man (1964) Knowledge and Human Interests (1968) The Poverty of Theory (1978) The Scientific Image (1980) The Rhetoric of Economics (1986) Critics Theodor W. Adorno Gaston Bachelard Mario Bunge Wilhelm Dilthey Paul Feyerabend Hans-Georg Gadamer Jürgen Habermas Thomas Kuhn Vladimir Lenin György Lukács Herbert Marcuse Deirdre McCloskey Stephen Pepper Karl Popper Willard Van Orman Quine E. P. Thompson Bas van Fraassen Max Weber Concepts in contention Knowledge Objectivity Phronesis Truth Verstehen Category

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