Auguste Comte: biography of this founding philosopher of positivism

Talking about science is talking about research, the search for knowledge through experimentation and the validation of empirically verifiable hypotheses and theories. Regardless of how we say it, what is clear is that knowledge is only considered scientific if it can be objectively proven.

Now, this idea of ​​science has not arisen out of nowhere: throughout history a large number of authors have debated and defended from philosophy and epistemology various models of knowledge, some of which are opposed or exclusive each other.

One of these models is the Positivism of Auguste Comte, one of the main philosophical currents that advocates that a Authentic and true knowledge can only be obtained through the verification of the hypotheses through the method scientist. This movement has largely marked the intellectual evolution of an era, which is why we need to know its main creator. It is because of that Throughout this article we are going to make a short biography of Auguste Comte, with the main contributions of him to the intellectual development of the West.

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Brief biography of Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte was born on January 19, 1798 in Montpellier, France, in the last years of the French Revolution. Born Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte, he was one of three children of civil servant Louis Auguste Xavier Comte and Félicité Rosalie Comte. His family of origin was of modest means, with strong Catholic beliefs. and defenders of the monarchy.

During his first years of life Comte was educated in the Catholic religion, and would attend a school in his hometown. Around the age of fourteen, the young man decided to declare himself an agnostic and a republican. Highly intelligent and endowed with a great memory capacity, his grades were high but he stood out for his great rebellion.

Training

In 1814, when the young man was sixteen years old, he was accepted into the Polytechnic School of Paris. In this center he would begin to be interested in science and engineering, subjects promoted with a view to the training of new technicians for the benefit of the State, and he would come into contact with the ideas of Count Claude Henri Saint-Simon for the first time.

All this led him to believe in the need to create a society governed by scientists. However, two years later the government decided to close the institution, due to its republican ideology.

The closure of said school caused Comte to return to Montpellier, where he would begin to study medicine at the university while he survived by teaching mathematics. However a short time later he decided to return to Paris and settle there, studying self-taught. Academically he was an outstanding student, but nevertheless he did not get any degree, something that would later make it difficult for him to access different positions.

In Paris he met Saint-Simon in person, and managed to become his secretary in 1817. He would remain with him until 1824, a period in which he obtained a great deal of learning from his mentor, although he would end up separating from him in the face of disagreements about what should be done to remodel the society.

The separation occurred after the publication of the Plan des travaux scientifiques necessaires pour réorganiser la societé (“Plan of the scientific work necessary to reorganize society”, a work in which one would begin to observe the nature of positivism and his involvement with politics) by Comte, with whom his mentor disagreed, and due to Saint-Simon's lack of appreciation of his thoughts of him.

Precariousness and crisis

A year later, in 1825, Auguste Comte he married Anne Calorine Massin. For a few years the couple suffered a great economic precariousness, which forced Comte to organize positive philosophy courses at great speed and with almost no sleep in order to survive.

He began to give lessons in his house, lessons in which he would have as students some of the most renowned scientific personalities of the time. These lessons dealt with positive philosophy, being with the passage of time collected in the Courses of positive philosophy, which would culminate in six volumes in 1840.

The great mental exhaustion of the author led him to suffer nervous breakdowns for the first time, of such seriousness that he had to cancel his courses and they led him to a state of high irascibility and delusions of type messianic. Despite the fact that initially his mental problems were addressed by his wife, they worsened more and more.

After that, he was admitted to Saint-Denis and diagnosed as a "megalomaniac maniac"., something that could correspond to a manic episode or even to Psychotic attack.

His internment lasted a year, until December 1826, when the intervention of his mother allowed him to leave the center despite the fact that he was not considered cured. However, shortly after (in 1827) the author jumped from the Bridge of Arts into the Seine River with the intention of taking his own life, something a guard prevented.

The beginning of positivism

In 1828, somewhat more recovered, Comte resumed his lessons in his home, while he began to compile and elaborate the different volumes of his "Course in Positive Philosophy", which would end as we have already said in 1840, and in which it would include the three theoretical stages through which each branch of knowledge must pass (theological, metaphysical and scientific/positive). It was this book and the courses he took that sparked the rise of positivism as a current of scientific thought.

Besides, he founded and worked as a professor at the Polytechnic School of the Polytechnic Association, which allowed him to expand his ideas, but in which he, however, could not be a professor and from which he ended up being expelled.

Likewise, and starting from this base and his dream of generating a society led by wise scientists, Comte he claimed to apply the principles of mathematics and science to social phenomenaSociology was born based on this ideal. One of the works in which he would reflect these beliefs is found in System of positive politics, or Traité de sociologie, instituting the religion of humanity (which would be published in 1854).

In 1842 he separated from his wife. in 1845 he met what would be his great love, Clotilde de Vaux, which initially rejected him but ended up establishing a relationship with him. A relationship that would end a year later, when the woman died. All of this, together with the economic precariousness that accompanied him throughout his life, would once again lead him to a state of crisis in which he required the financial support of admirers such as Stuart Mill.

Last years, death and legacy

towards the end of his life there was a shift in Comte's thought towards religion, elaborating works in which he linked positivism with religious feeling and the elaboration of a personal god and trying to promote a new religion in which society was ruled by sociologists.

He also began to write and finished one of the volumes of Synthèse subjective ou Système universel des conceptions propres à l’état normal de l’Humanité, in which he intended to link mathematics and religion.

auguste comte he died on September 5, 1857, in the city of Paris, at the age of 59, as a consequence of a cancer of stomach origin.

Despite the great difficulties that he had throughout his life, Comte's work has left a legacy of great importance worldwide, since from sociology and other currents that have been born either based on the ideals of positivism or in opposition to these.

Criticism of Compte's thought

Compte's positivism has received much criticism over the years, especially in the last decades of the 20th century, with the rise of postmodern thought. The idea that true knowledge is practically inseparable from the hard sciences has been seen as a sign of reductionism which, in fact, is unscientific, being based on the idea that the world works adjusting to human epistemology.

On the other hand, those who point out that Philosophical positions towards science imply a political position They often argue that Compte's ideology was reactionary, positioning himself in favor of an individualistic vision of the generation of knowledge and access to the truth.

However, it cannot be denied that the ideas of this thinker are still very influential today and that gave strength to the idea that there are areas of knowledge in which knowledge is more grounded than in others.