Auguste Comte

Law of Three Stages: (Diagram of Register)

According to Comte, each branch of our knowledge passes successively through the
different theoretical conditions. This is known as law of three stages. The main aim of this
principle is to provide the basis of sociological thinking.

Positivism has influence of enlightenment ideologies. Saint Simon called sociology as social
physics. He advocated for organic analogy to study society.
Robert Merton used positivistic ideas in his study of Reference Group Behaviour. He
collected data on American soldiers to show relative deprivation.
Comte believed that each field of knowledge passes through three periods of growth pattern.

The Theological or Fictitious stage:

The theological stage is the first and it characterized the world prior to 1300. In theological
stage, all natural phenomena and social events were explained in terms of super natural
forces, which is ultimately explaining everything as the product of God ‘s will. For example,
ancient people actually believed that planets were gods in the sky, looking down on Earth.
Even the sun was part of the world of the gods; ancient Greeks believed the sun was one
wheel on the massive chariot steered by Apollo. If something bad happened, like a
community experienced bad weather or an earthquake, people in the theological stage
would explain that event as a god being upset and showing his or her anger to the people. In
short, the theological stage meant that people used supernatural or divine explanations to
understand society and the world.
This stage is dominated by priests and ruled by military men.
During this stage, every phenomenon was believed to be the result of immediate actions of
super-natural beings. It has three sub-stages:

Fetishism:

Fetish means inanimate and ‗ism means philosophy. This is a philosophy which believes
that super natural power dwells in inanimate object. Fetishism as a form of religion started
which admitted of no priesthood. During this sub-stage of theological stage, pieces of wood,
stone, skull etc. are believed to be the dwelling place of super natural powers, as these
objects are believed to possess divine power. But too many fetishes created confusion for
people. Hence, they started believing in several gods. Thus, arose polytheism.

Polytheism:
Poly means many. So, the belief in many Gods is called polytheism. Human being received
variety of natural phenomena. Each phenomenon was kept under the disposal of one God.
One God was believed to be in charge of one particular natural phenomenon. In polytheism,
people created the class of priests to get the goodwill and the blessings of these gods. The
presence of too many gods also created for them mental contradictions. Finally, they
developed the idea of one God, i.e. monotheism.
Monotheism:
It means belief in one single God. He is all in all. He controls everything in this world. He is
the maker of human destiny. Slowly feelings and imaginations started giving place to
thinking and rationality. Monotheism is the climax of the theological stage of thinking.

Metaphysical or Abstract Stage:

The metaphysical stage started about 1300 A.D. and was short lived roughly till 1800. It
corresponds very roughly to the middle Ages and Renaissance. It was under the sway of
churchmen and lawyers. During this sub-stage, supernatural being is replaced by
supernatural force. Rationalism started growing instead of imagination. People in
metaphysical stage believe in God, however, they do not explain, everything which happens
in the society is due to the will of God. However, most of the problems take place due to the
inadequacy of humans. To make sense of the world; religious and scientific view co-exists in
metaphysical stage. This stage is also called, “transitional stage” because it progresses from
absolute imagination to rationality. For example, if someone is sick they may associate
sickness with germs which is rational however, they might use the spiritual ritual to cure the
disease. Under metaphysical thinking it is believed that an abstract power or force guides
and determines the events in the world. Metaphysical thinking discards belief in concrete
God.

The Positive or Scientific stage:

Finally, in 1800 the world entered the positivistic stage. The positive stage represents the
scientific way of thinking. Positive thought ushers in an industrial age. The positive or
scientific knowledge is based upon facts and these facts are gathered by observation and
experience. All phenomena are seen as subject to natural laws that can be investigated by
observations and experimentation.
The dawn of the 19th Century marked the beginning of the positive stage in which
observation predominates over imagination. All theoretical concepts have become positive.
The concept of God is totally vanished from human mind. Human mind tries to establish
cause and effect relationship. Mind is actually in search of final and ultimate cause. Each
social phenomenon in this stage is explained by, the scientific findings and empirical
research. For example, if someone is sick it not is interpreted and explained as, the will of
God or caused due to some supernatural power or the result of wrong doing of individual
which make the God angry and unleashed his wrath upon him in the form of sickness. It is
explained by the people rationally and scientifically, that the illness is caused by germs.
During this stage, if an earthquake happens, people believe that’s because of movement in
the tectonic plates, not because a god is upset.
The scientific thinking is thoroughly rational and there is no place for any belief or
superstition in it. This stage is governed by industrial administrators and scientific moral
guides.
This is the ultimate stage in a series of successive transformations. The new system is built
upon the destruction of the old; with evolution, come progress and emancipation of human
mind. This stage is dominated by the entrepreneurs, technologists etc.

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Positivism: (Memorize)
Positivism describes an approach to the study of society that specifically utilizes scientific
evidence such as experiments, statistics, and qualitative results to reveal a truth about the
way society functions. It is based on the assumption that it's possible to observe social life
and establish reliable knowledge about its inner workings.
Positivism also argues that sociology should concern itself only with what can be observed
with the senses and that theories of social life should be built in a rigid, linear, and
methodical way on a base of verifiable fact. Nineteenth-century French philosopher Auguste
Comte developed and defined the term in his books "The Course in Positive Philosophy"
and "A General View of Positivism." He theorized that the knowledge gleaned from
positivism can be used to affect the course of social change and improve the human
condition.

Five Principles of Positivism

Five principles make up the theory of positivism. It asserts that the logic of inquiry is identical
across all branches of science; the goal of inquiry is to explain, predict, and discover; and
research should be observed empirically with human senses. Positivism also maintains that
science is not the same as common sense, and it should be judged by logic and remain free
of values.

Positivism Today:
Positivism has had relatively little influence on contemporary sociology because it is said to
encourage a misleading emphasis on superficial facts without any attention to underlying
mechanisms that cannot be observed. Instead, sociologists understand that the study
of culture is complex and requires many complex methods necessary for research. For
example, by using fieldwork, researchers immerse themselves in another culture to learn
about it. Modern sociologists don't embrace the version of one "true" vision of society as a
goal for sociology like Comte did.
Criticism:
Comte’s law of three stages have been criticized by different philosophers and sociologists.
The first – and perhaps most fundamental – flaw of positivism is its claim to certainty. As
Crotty says, ‘articulating scientific knowledge is one thing; claiming that scientific knowledge
is utterly objective and that only scientific knowledge is valid, certain and accurate is
another’.
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."
According to Bogardus, Comte failed to postulate a fourth mode of thinking, i.e. socialized
thinking, a system of thought which would emphasize the purpose of building the
constructive, just and harmonious societies. Bogardus also says, Comte however, should be
credited with opening the way for rise of socialized thinking.
Sociologists believe that sociology should be concerned with the subjective understanding of
objective reality (SU of OR). That is why we cannot study sociology from the positivistic
thought.
Post modernists believe that there cannot be a single grand (universal) theory about social
science. Because reality can be studied in many ways. In this way, they reject the positivistic
ideas.
Interactionists argue that that actions and interactions result in social actions. These
interactions are subjective to individual’s ideas and values. So, we have to take into account
individual’s internal beliefs contrary to positivistic thought.
Phenomenologists say that generalization is not possible. They argue that positivism is not
concerned with sociology but is concerned with making a science out of sociology.
Ethnomethodology believe that reality should be studied from people’s perspective and not
researcher’s perspective.

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