Positivism

Positivism is a system of philosophical and religious doctrines elaborated by

Auguste Comte. As a philosophical system or method, Positivism denies the

validity of metaphysical speculations, and maintains that the data of sense

experience are the only object and the supreme criterion of human knowledge;

as a religious system, it denies the existence of a personal God and takes

humanity, "the great being", as the object of its veneration and cult. We shall

give a brief historical sketch of Positivism, an exposition of its fundamental

principles, and a criticism of them.

HISTORY OF POSITIVISM

The founder of Positivism was Auguste Comte (born at Montpellier, 19 Jan.,

1798; died at Paris, 5 Sept., 1857). He entered the Ecole polytechnique at Paris

in 1814, was a disciple of Saint-Simon until 1824, and began to publish his

course of philosophy in 1826. About this period he became temporarily deranged

(1826-27). After recovering, he was appointed instructor (1832-52) and examiner

in mathematics (1837-44) at the Ecole polytechnique, giving meanwhile a course

of public lectures on astronomy. The unhappiness of his married life and his

strange infatuation for Mme Clotilde de Vaux (1845-46) greatly influenced his

naturally sentimental character. He realized that mere intellectual development is

insufficient for life, and, having presented Positivism as the scientific doctrine and

method, he aimed at making it a religion, the religion of humanity. Comte's chief

works are his "Cours de philosophie positive" [6 vols.: Phiosophie mathématique

(1830), astronomique et physique (1835), chimique et biologique (1838), partie

dogmatique de la philosophie sociale (1839), partie historique (1840),

complément de la philosophie sociale et conclusions (1842); translated by

Harriet Martineau (London, 1853)] and his "Cours de politique positive" (3 vols.,

Paris 1815-54). Various influences concurred to form Comte's system of thought:

the Empiricism of Locke and the Scepticism of Hume, the Sensism of the

eighteenth century and the Criticism of Kant, the Mysticism of the Middle Ages,

the Traditionalism of De Maistre and de Bonald, and the Philanthropy of

Saint-Simon. He maintains as a law manifested by history that every science

passes through three successive stages, the theological, the metaphysical, and

the positive; that the positive stage, which rejects the validity of metaphysical

speculation, the existence of final causes, and the knowableness of the

absolute, and confines itself to the study of experimental facts and their

relations, represents the perfection of human knowledge. Classifying the

sciences according to their degree of increasing complexity, he reduces them to

six in the following order: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology,

and sociology. Religion has for its object the "great being" (humanity), the "great

medium" (world-space), and the "great fetich" (the earth), which form the

positivist trinity. This religion has its hierarchical priesthood, its positive dogmas,

its organized cult, and even its calendar on the model of Catholicism (cf. Comte,

"Catéchisme positiviste").

At the death of Comte, a division arose among the Positivists, the dissident

group being formed with Littré as its leader, and the orthodox group under the

direction of Pierre Laffitte. Emile Littré (q. v.) accepted Positivism in its scientific

aspect: for him Positivism was essentially a method, viz, that method which

limits human knowledge to the study of experimental facts and neither affirms nor

denies anything concerning what may exist outside of experience. He rejected

as unreal the religious organization and cult of Positivism. He considered all

religions from the philosophical point of view, to be equally vain, while he

confessed that, from the historical point of view, Catholicism was superior to all

other religions. The true end of man, he maintained, was to work for the progress

of humanity by studying it (science and education), loving it (religion), beautifying

it (fine arts), and enriching it (industry). The official successor of Comte and

leader of the orthodox group of Postivists was Pierre Laffitte, who became

professor of the general history of sciences in the Collège de France in 1892. He

maintained both the scientific and the religious teaching of Positivism with its

cult, sacraments, and ceremonies. Other orthodox groups were formed in

England with Harrison as its leader and Congreve, Elliot, Hutton, Morrison etc. as

its chief adherents; in Sweden with A. Nystrom. An active and influential group

was also founded in Brazil and Chile with Benjamin Constant and Miguel Lemos

as leaders and a temple of humanity was built at Rio Janeiro in 1891. The

principles of Positivism as a philosophical system were accepted and applied in

England by J. Stuart Mill, who had been in correspondence with Comte (cf.

"Lettres d'Aug. Comte à John Stuart Mill, 1841-1844", Paris, 1877), Spencer,

Bain, Lewes, Maudsley, Sully, Romanes, Huxley, Tyndall etc.; in France by

Taine, Ribot, de Roberty etc.; in Germany by Dühring, Avenarius etc. Thus, the

principles and spirit of Positivism pervaded the scientific and philosophical

thought of the nineteenth century and exercised a pernicious influence in every

sphere. They had their practical consequences in the systems of positive or

so-called scientific morality and utilitarianism in ethics, of neutrality and

naturalism in religion.

PRINCIPLES OF POSITIVISM

The fundamental principle of Positivism is, as already said, that sense

experience is the only object of human knowledge as well as its sole and

supreme criterion. Hence abstract notions or general ideas are nothing more than

collective notions; judgments are mere empirical colligations of facts. Reasoning

includes induction and the syllogism: induction has for its conclusion a

proposition which contains nothing more than the collection of a certain number

of sense experiences, and the syllogism, taking this conclusion as its major

proposition is necessarily sterile or even results in a vicious circle. Thus,

according to Positivism, science cannot be, as Aristotle conceived it, the

knowledge of things through their ultimate causes, since material and formal

causes are unknowable, final causes illusions, and efficient causes simply

invariable antecedents, while metaphysics, under any form, is illegitimate.

Positivism is thus a continuation of crude Empiricism, Associationism, and

Nominalism. The arguments advanced by Positivism, besides the assertion that

sense experiences are the only object of human knowledge, are chiefly two: the

first is that psychological analysis shows that all human knowledge can be

ultimately reduced to sense experiences and empirical associations; the second,

insisted upon by Comte, is historical, and is based on his famous "law of the

three stages", according to which the human mind in its progress is supposed to

have been successively influenced by theological preoccupations and

metaphysical speculation, and to have finally reached at the present time the

positive stage, which marks, according to Comte, its full and perfect development

(cf. "Cours de philosophie positive", II, 15 sqq.).

CRITICISM

Positivism asserts that sense experiences are the only object of human

knowledge, but does not prove its assertion. It is true that all our knowledge has

its starting point in sense experience, but it is not proved that knowledge stops

there. Positivism fails to demonstrate that, above particular facts and contingent

relations, there are not abstract notions, general laws, universal and necessary

principles, or that we cannot know them. Nor does it prove that material and

corporeal things constitute the whole order of existing beings, and that our

knowledge is limited to them. Concrete beings and individual relations are not

only perceptible by our senses, but they have also their causes and laws of

existence and constitution; they are intelligible. These causes and laws pass

beyond the particularness and contingency of individual facts, and are elements

as fundamentally real as the individual facts which they produce and control.

They cannot be perceived by our senses, but why can they not be explained by

our intelligence? Again, immaterial beings cannot be perceived by sense

experience, it is true, but their existence is not contradictory to our intelligence,

and, if their existence is required as a cause and a condition of the actual

existence of material things, they certainly exist. We can infer their existence

and know something of their nature. They cannot indeed be known in the same

way as material things, but this is no reason for declaring them unknowable to

our intelligence (see AGNOSTICISM; ANALOGY). According to Positivism, our

abstract concepts or general ideas are mere collective representations of the

experimental order — for example, the idea of "man" is a kind of blended image

of all the men observed in our experience. This is a fundamental error. Every

image bears individual characters; an image of man is always an image of a

particular man and can represent only that one man. What is called a collective

image is nothing more than a collection of divers images succeeding one

another, each representing an individual and concrete object, as may be seen by

attentive observation. An idea, on the contrary, abstracts from any concrete

determination, and may be applied identically to an indefinite number of objects

of the same class. Collective images are more or less confused, and are the

more so as the collection represented is larger; an idea remains always clear.

There are objects which we cannot imagine (e. g. a myriagon, a substance, a

principle), and which we can nevertheless distinctly conceive. Nor is the general

idea a name substituted as a sign for all the individual objects of the same class,

as stated by Taine (De l'Intelligence, I, 26). If a certain perception, says Taine,

always coincides with or follows another perception (e. g. the perception of

smoke and that of fire, the smell of a sweet odour and the sight of a rose), then

the one becomes the sign of the other in such a way that, when we perceive one,

we instinctively anticipate the presence of the other. So it is, Taine adds, with our

general ideas. When we have perceived a number of different trees, there remains

in our memory a certain image made up of the characters common to all trees,

namely the image of a trunk with branches. We call it "tree", and this word

becomes the exclusive sign of the class "tree"; it evokes the image of the

individual objects of that class as the perception of every one of these evokes the

image of the sign substituted for the whole class.

Cardinal Mercier rightly remarks that this theory rests upon a confusion between

experimental analogy and abstraction (Critériologie générale l, III c. iii, § 2, pp.

237 sqq.). Experimental analogy plays indeed a large part in our practical life,

and is an important factor in the education of our senses (cf. St. Thomas, "Anal.

post.", II, xv). But it should be remarked that experimental analogy is limited to

the individual objects observed, to particular and similar objects; its generality is

essentially relative. Again, the words which designate the objects correspond to

the characters of these objects, and we cannot speak of "abstract names" when

only individual objects are given, Such is not the case with our general ideas.

They are the result of an abstraction, not of a mere perception of individual

objects, however numerous; they are the conception of a type applicable in its

unity and identity to an indefinite number of the objects of which it is the type.

They thus have a generality without limit and independent of any concrete

determination. If the words which signify them can be the sign of all the individual

objects of the same class, it is because that same class has first been

conceived in its type; these names are abstract because they signify an abstract

concept. Hence mere experience is insufficient to account for our general ideas.

A careful study of Taine's theory and the illustrations given shows that the

apparent plausibility of this theory comes precisely from the fact that Taine

unconsciously introduces and employs abstraction. Again, Positivism, and this

is the point especially developed by John Stuart Mill (following Hume), maintains

that what we call "necessary truths" (even mathematical truths, axioms,

principles) are merely the result of experience, a generalization of our

experiences. We are conscious, e. g. that we cannot at the same time affirm and

deny a certain proposition, that one state of mind excludes the other; then we

generalize our observation and express as a general principle that a proposition

cannot be true and false at the same time. Such a principle is simply the result

of a subjective necessity based on experience. Now, it is true that experience

furnishes us with the matter out of which our judgments are formed, and with the

occasion to formulate them. But mere experience does not afford either the proof

or the confirmation of our certitude concerning their truth. If it were so, our

certitude should increase with every new experience, and such is not the case,

and we could not account for the absolute character of this certitude in all men,

nor for the identical application of this certitude to the same propositions by all

men. In reality we affirm the truth and necessity of a proposition, not because we

cannot subjectively deny it or conceive its contradictory, but because of its

objective evidence, which is the manifestation of the absolute, universal, and

objective truth of the proposition, the source of our certitude, and the reason of

the subjective necessity in us.

As to the so-called "law of the three stages", it is not borne out by a careful

study of history. It is true that we meet with certain epochs more particularly

characterized by the influence of faith, or metaphysical tendencies, or

enthusiasm for natural science. But even then we do not see that these

characteristics realize the order expressed in Comte's law. Aristotle was a close

student of natural science, while after him the neo-Platonic School was almost

exclusively given to metaphysical speculation. In the sixteenth century there was

a great revival of experimental sciences; yet it was followed by the metaphysical

speculation of the German idealistic school. The nineteenth century beheld a

wonderful development of the natural sciences, but we are now witnessing a

revival of the study of metaphysics. Nor is it true that these divers tendencies

cannot exist during the same epoch. Aristotle was a metaphysician as well as a

scientist. Even in the Middle Ages, which are so generally considered as

exclusively given to a priori metaphysics, observation and experiment had a large

place, as is shown by the works of Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus. St.

Thomas himself manifests a remarkably keen spirit of psychological observation

in his "Commentaries" and in his "Summa theologica", especially in his

admirable treatise on the passions. Finally, we see a harmonious combination of

faith, metaphysical reasoning, and experimental observation in such men as

Kepler, Descartes, Leibniz, Paschal etc. The so-called "law of the three stages"

is a gratuitous assumption, not a law of history.

The positivist religion is a logical consequence of the principles of Positivism. In

reality human reason can prove the existence of a personal God and of His

providence, and the moral necessity of revelation, while history proves the

existence of such a revelation. The establishment of a religion by Positivism

simply shows that for man religion is a necessity.

ROBINET, Notice sur l'œuvre et la vie d' A. Comte (Paris, 1860); Testament d' A. Comte (Paris,

1884); MILL, A. Comte and Positivism (London. 1867, 1882); CARE, Littré et le positivisme (Paris,

1883); CAIRD, The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte (Glasgow, 1885); LAURENT, La

philos. de Stuart Mill (Paris. 1886); GRUBER, A Comte, der Begrunder d. Positivismus (Freiburg,

1889); IDEM, Der Positivismus vom Tode A. Comte's bis auf unsere Tage (Freiburg, 1891); Stimmen

aus Maria-Laach, supplements xiv and lii; RAVAISSON, La philos. en France, au XIXe Siécle

(Paris, 1894); MERCIER, Psychologie (6th ed., Louvain, 1894); IDEM, Critériologie générale (4th

ed., Louvain, 1900); PEILLLAUBE, La théorie des concepts (Paris, 1895); PIAT, L'idée (Paris,

1901); MAHER, Psychology (5th ed., London, 1903); BALFOUR, Defense of Philosophic Doubt

(London, 1895); TURNER, Hist. of Philos. (Boston, 1903); DEHERME, A. Comte et son œuvre (Paris,

1909).

George M. Sauvage

Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter

Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XII

Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org