Auguste Comte Auguste Comte, the French Philosopher, is traditionally considered the "Father of Sociology".

Comte who invented the term "Sociology" was the first man to distinguish the subject-matter of sociology from all the other sciences. He worked out in a series of books, a general approach to the study of society. Comte is regarded as the "Father of Sociology" not because of any significant contributions to the science as such, but because of the great influence he had upon it. It would be more appropriate to regard him as a philosopher of science rather than a sociologist. Comte introduced the word "sociology" for the first time in his famous book "Positive Philosophy" at about 1839. The term "Sociology" is derived from the Latin word Socius, meaning companion or associate, and the Greek word logos, meaning study or science. Thus, the etymological meaning of sociology is the science of society. He defined sociology as the science of social phenomena "subject to natural and invariable laws, the discovery of which is the object of investigation". Comte devoted his main efforts to an inquiry into the nature of human knowledge and tried to classify all knowledge and to analyse the methods of achieving it. He concentrated his efforts to determine the nature of human society and the laws and principles underlying its growth and development. He also laboured to establish the methods to be employed in studying social phenomena. Comte believed that the sciences follow one another in a definite and logical order and that all inquiry goes through certain stages (namely, the theological, the metaphysical and the positive or scientific or empirical). Finally, they arrive at the last or scientific stage or as he called the positive stage. In the positive stage, objective observation is substituted for speculation. Social phenomena like physical phenomena, maintained, can be studied objectively by making use of the positive method. He thought that it was time for inquiries into social problems and social phenomena to enter into this last stage. So, he recommended that the study of society be called the science of society, i. e. 'sociology'. Comte proposed sociology to be studied in two main parts (i) the social statics and (ii) the social dynamics. These two concepts represent a basic division in the subject-matter of sociology. The social statics deals with the major institutions of society such as family, economy or polity. Sociology is conceived of as the study of inter-relations between such institutions. In the words of Comte, "the statical study of sociology consists the investigations of laws of action and reaction of different parts of the social system". He argued that the parts of a society cannot be studied separately, "as if they had independent existence". If Statics examines how the parts of societies are interrelated, social dynamics focuses on whole societies as the unit of analysis and how they developed and changed through time. "We must remember that the laws of social dynamics are most recognisable when they relate

to the largest societies", he said. Comte was convinced that all societies moved through certain fixed stages of development and that progressed towards ever increasing perfection. He felt that the comparative study of societies as "wholes" was major subject for sociological analysis. LIFE OF AUGUSTE COMTE Comte was born in Montpellier, Hrault, in southern France on 19 January 1798. After attending the Lyce Joffre and then the University of Montpellier, Comte was admitted to the cole Polytechnique in Paris. The cole Polytechnique was notable for its adherence to the French ideals of republicanism and progress. The cole closed in 1816 for reorganization, however, and Comte continued his studies at the medical school at Montpellier. When the cole Polytechnique reopened, he did not request readmission. Following his return to Montpellier, Comte soon came to see unbridgeable differences with his Catholic and monarchist family and set off again for Paris, earning money by small jobs. In August 1817, he became a student and secretary to Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, who brought Comte into contact with intellectual society and greatly influenced his thought therefrom. During that time Comte published his first essays in the various publications headed by Saint-Simon, L'Industrie, Le Politique, and L'Organisateur (Charles Dunoyer and Charles Comte's Le Censeur Europen), although he would not publish under his own name until 1819's "La sparation gnrale entre les opinions et les dsirs" ("The general separation of opinions and desires"). In 1824, Comte left Saint-Simon, again because of unbridgeable differences. Comte published a Plan de travaux scientifiques ncessaires pour rorganiser la socit(1822) (Plan of scientific studies necessary for the reorganization of society). But he failed to get an academic post. His day-to-day life depended on sponsors and financial help from friends. Debates rage as to how much Comte appropriated the work of Saint-Simon. Comte married Caroline Massin, but divorced in 1842. In 1826, he was taken to a mental health hospital, but left without being cured only stabilized by French alienist Jean-tienne Dominique Esquirol so that he could work again on his plan (he would later attempt suicide in 1827 by jumping off the Pont des Arts). In the time between this and their divorce, he published the six volumes of his Cours. Comte developed a close friendship with John Stuart Mill. From 1844, he had a platonic relationship with Clotilde de Vaux. After her death in 1846 this love became quasi-religious, and Comte, working closely with Mill (who was refining his own such system) developed a new "Religion of Humanity". John Kells Ingram, an adherent of Comte, visited him in Paris in 1855. He published four volumes of Systme de politique positive (18511854). His final work, the first volume of "La Synthse Subjective" ("The Subjective Synthesis"), was published in 1856.

Comte died in Paris on 5 September 1857 from stomach cancer and was buried in the famous Pre Lachaise Cemetery, surrounded by cenotaphs in memory of his mother, Rosalie Boyer, and of Clotilde de Vaux. His apartment from 18411857 is now conserved as the Maison d'Auguste Comte and is located at 10 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, in Paris' 6th arrondissement. POSITIVISM The thoughts of Auguste Comte , who coined the term sociology, while dated and riddled with weaknesses, continue in many ways to be important to contemporary sociology. First and foremost, Comte's positivism the search for invariant laws governing the social and natural worlds has influenced profoundly the ways in which sociologists have conducted sociological inquiry. Comte argued that sociologists (and other scholars), through theory, speculation, and empirical research, could create a realist science that would accurately "copy" or represent the way things actually are in the world. Furthermore, Comte argued that sociology could become a "social physics" i.e., a social science on a par with the most positivistic of sciences, physics. Comte believed that sociology would eventually occupy the very pinnacle of a hierarchy of sciences. Comte also identified four methods of sociology. To this day, in their inquiries sociologists continue to use the methods of observation, experimentation, comparison, and historical research. While Comte did write about methods of research, he most often engaged in speculation or theorizing in order to attempt to discover invariant laws of the social world. Comte's famed "law of the three stages" is an example of his search for invariant laws governing the social world. Comte argued that the human mind, individual human beings, all knowledge, and world history develop through three successive stages. The theological stage is dominated by a search for the essential nature of things, and people come to believe that all phenomena are created and influenced by gods and supernatural forces. Monotheism is the ultimate belief of the theological stage. The metaphysical stage is a transitional stage in which mysterious, abstract forces (e.g., nature) replace supernatural forces as the powers that explain the workings of the world. The positivist stage is the last and highest stage in Comte's work. In this stage, people search for invariant laws that govern all of the phenomena of the world. Comte also used the term positivism in a second sense; that is, as a force that could counter the negativism of his times. In Comte's view, most of Western Europe was mired in political and moral disorder that was a consequence of the French Revolution of 1789. Positivism, in Comte's philosophy, would bring order and progress to the European crisis of ideas. Comte's philosophical idealism thus separates his views from those of his contemporary Karl Marx (1818-1883), who was a materialist.

COMTES SOCIOLOGY Comte separated social statics from social dynamics. Social statics are concerned with the ways in which the parts of a social system (social structures) interact with one another, as well as the functional relationships between the parts and to the social system as a whole. Comte therefore focused his social statics on the individual, as well as such collective phenomena as the family, religion, language, and the division of labor. Comte placed greater emphasis on the study of social dynamics, or social change. His theory of social dynamics is founded on the law of the three stages; i.e., the evolution of society is based on the evolution of mind through the theological, metaphysical, and positivist stages. He saw social dynamics as a process of progressive evolution in which people become cumulatively more intelligent and in which altruism eventually triumphs over egoism. This process is one that people can modify or accelerate, but in the end the laws of progressive development dictate the development of society. Comte's research on social evolution focused on Western Europe, which he viewed as the most highly developed part of the world during his times. LAW OF THREE STAGES The Law of Three Stages is an idea developed by Auguste Comte. It states that society as a whole, and each particular science, develops through three mentally conceived stages: (1) the theological stage, (2) the metaphysical stage, and (3) the positive stage. The progression of the three stages 1. The Theological stage refers to explanation by personified deities. During the earlier stages, man believed that all the phenomena of nature are the creation of the divine or supernatural.Man and children failed to discover the natural causes of various phenomena and hence attributed them to supernatural or divine power. Comte broke this stage into 3 substages: 1a. Fetishism- Fetishism was the primary stage of the theological stage of thinking. Throughout this stage, the primitive people had a belief that inanimate object had living spirit in it, also known as animism. People worshipped inanimate objects like trees, stones, a piece of wood, volcanic eruptions, etc. 1b. Polytheism - The explanation of things through the use of many Gods. Primitive people believe that each natural forces were controlled by different Gods; a

few examples would be God of water, God of rain, God of fire, God of air, God of earth, etc. 1c. Monotheism - Monotheism means believing in one God or God in one; attributing all to a single, supreme deity. 2. The Metaphysical stage is the extension of theological stage. Metaphysical stage refers to explanation by impersonal abstract explanation, often people tried to believe that God is an abstract being. 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 nature of enquiry was legal and rational in nature. For example; Classical Hindu Indian society where the principle of transmigration of soul, the conception of rebirth, notions of pursuant were largely governed by metaphysical uphill.

3. The Positivity stage, also known as the scientific stage, refers to scientific explanation based on observation, experiment, and comparison. Positive explanations rely upon a distinct method, the scientific method, for its justification. During this stage, human tried to establish cause and effect relationship. Positivism is a purely intellectual way of looking at the world; as well it puts emphasises on observation and classification of data and facts. Comte, however, was conscious of the fact that the three stages of thinking may or do exist in the same society or in the same mind and may not always be successive. Comte proposed a hierarchy of the sciences based on historical sequence, with areas of knowledge passing through these stages in order of complexity. The simplest and most remote areas of knowledge - mechanical or physical - become scientific first. These are followed by the more complex sciences, those considered closest to us. The sciences, then, according to Comte's "law", developed in this order: Mathematics; Astronomy; Physics; Chemistry; Biology; Psychology; Sociology. A science of society is thus the "Queen science" in Comte's hierarchy as it would be the most fundamentally complex. Through social science, Comte believed all human social ills could be remedied.

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Comte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_three_stages http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0072824301/student_view0/chapter3/chapter_summary.html http://sociology-4-all.blogspot.com/2009/03/auguste-comte-1798-1857-foundingfather.html

19 January 1798 5 September 1857

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