SAUNT-SIMON and positivism
This lesson from a TEACHER is dedicated toSaint-Simon, French philosopher, father of positivism and of sociology and without a doubt, a great inspiration for utopian socialism, Mill's liberalism, the anarchism of Proudhon or the Marxism of Marx Y Engels. This thinker proposes a reform of society and the creation of a new state where scientists are in command (technocracy). On the other hand, he is in favor of a Europe of federated countries with common institutions, which will significantly improve the economy, which is the foundation of society. If you want to know more about Saint-Simon and positivism, keep reading!
The positivism is a philosophical current that considers that the scientific knowledge is he only true knowledge and that in the same way that physics is to change to transform nature thanks to technology, the same method can be applied to society in order to transform it.
Positivists reject metaphysics, because it tries to go beyond experience, which is why it is branded as pseudoscience. Everything that cannot be measured and quantified, verified, is for the positivists, synonymous with falsehood.
Saint-Simon proposes that they be scientists who try, from politics, to change the course of humanity, something that speculative philosophy had failed to achieve. Morals must be understood from the point of view of science and must use the same method. The positive science proposed by the French thinker promises to achieve changes at all levels: economy, politics, society ...
For Saint-Simon and the positivists, the human being must be scientifically analyzed and positive philosophy must be applied to all sciences. The history science, the positivists assure, will be born at the moment in which a certain number of empirical data, of documented facts.
“I have divided [the different sections of humanity] into three classes. The first, to which you and I have the honor of belonging, marches under the banner of the progress of the human mind. It is made up of scientists, artists and all those who have liberal ideas. On the flag of the second is written 'No innovation!' All owners who do not belong to the first category are part of the second. The third class, which gathers around the slogan of 'Equality', is made up of the rest of the people”
Saint-Simon is considered the father of sociology and he is the first to propose a new society ruled by scientists, while he harshly criticizes the speculative philosophy incapable of establishing a social order. His new science is known as "social physiology”, Which studies the laws that govern society, and include morality in the field of physics, placing it at the same level.
“My friends, we are organic bodies; In considering our social relationships as physiological phenomena, I conceived the plan that I propose, and it is with arguments drawn from the system that I used to coordinate the physiological facts that I will demonstrate to you the value of this plan", He said Saint-Simon in his CGeneva artas, work published in 1803.
Saint-Simon's claim was to establish a “new intellectual system"Where it is not conjecture, but" positive "science that governs. Only scientists have the ability, says the French, to change the course of societies. Science and politics, he assures him, they must be united in order for society to move forward. Politics is a positive science and the positive method must be its method.
“It would be wholly philosophical not to admit the useful and important influence exerted by legal scholars and metaphysicians to modify the feudal and theological system and to prevent the drowning of the industrial and scientific system in its early demonstrations... the industrial and scientific system was born and developed under the dominion of the feudal and theological system”, Writes Saint-Simón in The industrial system.
An antecedent of the Comte's 3 states law that, like Saint-Simon, proposes a science of the phenomena of society, which can be studied from the positive method, and Comte explains it in his Positive Philosophy Course.
