Foucaults Reversal of Comtes Law

Alphonse Nazario
Ateneo de Manila University

The development of science as a method of inquiry is historicized usually with

the purpose of advancement of humankind. Auguste Comtes positivism is
foundational because he consolidates past ideas and events into a condensed
version of how science as subjects and as a method arose, and how this is
progressive towards knowledge and understanding of both nature and human
activity. However, Michel Foucaults perspective of science is bent from this, as
he shows that, in the treatment of madness, science is not always kind towards
the whole of society as it is not inclusive to all of it, and it is a form of power
knowledge, a concept that he has always been known for (see Foucault, 1990;
Foucault, 1995).
In this essay, I contend that Foucault applied, questioned, and
queered Comtes purpose for the law of three stages and positivism in general. I
do so by first presenting the law, and then iterating some of Foucaults ideas in
his book Madness and Civilization. Then I present the ways in which Foucault
draws positivism into his use of the development of the idea of and the
treatment on madness, and show the ways in which the use of positivism
becomes critiqued in the history of madness. I then conclude with a few final
thoughts on Comte and Foucault.

Comtes Law of Three Stages

Comte proposes that society goes through three stages of human

development and understanding (Comte, 1856, pp. 2526). The first stage is
the Theological stage, wherein knowledge and causes are directly attributed to
supernatural beings. This stage is the necessary point of departure for human
understanding, in order for human-produced knowledge to flourish. The
second stage is the Metaphysical stage, wherein personified
abstractions (Comte, 1856, p. 26), such as ethics, values, order (Mill, 1865, p.
14), and human dignity, become the bases for the production of all
phenomena. This stage is merely transitional and fleeting in society. The third
and final stage is the Positive stage, the chapter of human development wherein
reason and observation are the means of knowledge (Comte, 1856, p. 26).
Because it is the final stage according to Comte, it is also a fixed and definite
state of society. These stages are not only assigned in societies, but also in each

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field of science, as outlined in Comtes (1856) book, mathematics, astronomy,
physics, chemistry, biology, and social physics, or sociology.

Foucaults Madness and Civilization

Foucaults Madness and Civilization explains the rise of madness in

society and how it is treated and being dealt with accordingly. He explains that,
after the conception of madness, there have been three stagesso farof the
treatment of madness.

Renaissance Madness

Foucault (1988) first described the pre-Renaissance shift of focus from

leprosy to madness, while madness was not yet labeled as such, that, during
such shift, lazar houses were emptied out, but the structures that controlled
leprosy remained to be the same structures that controlled madness (Foucault,
1988, p. 7). There was also a shift from the theme of death in Western
literature to madness, and describes madness as the dj-l (already there) of
death; The head that will become a skull is already empty, as he (p. 16)
describes it. In other words, madness became the new death. During the
Renaissance itself, the concept and label of madness was born, and madmen
were considered to be figures of knowledge (Foucault, 1988, p. 21), of power
knowledge (pouvoirsavoir), which possessed some sort of inaccessible
truth (p. 23), and which [took] part in the measure of reason and in the labor
of truth (p. 36). The world became hospitable to madness at this point (p.
37), and liberated it, until the Classical Age (p. 38).

Madness in the Classical Age

Foucault called the treatment of madness in the Classical Age The

Great Confinement (in Foucault, 1988, pp. 3864). During this stage, people
who were considered mad were literally confined away from the rest of society
through institutions such as the Hpital Gnral in France. Foucault then
contended that confinement is a police matter, wherein police is defined as the
totality of measures which make work possible and necessary for all those who
could not live without it (p. 46). Thus, societies such as France and England
policed madness into confinement because it was considered the answer to an
economic crisis (p. 49) back then, and because madness was seen in the same
level of unreason and immorality as that of prostitution and blasphemy.

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Madness in the Scientific, Modern Age

Then, in the chapter Doctors and Patients, Foucault (1988, pp.

159198) described the four main goals of curing madness in the modern
stage of the world: consolidation, the process of finding the force within oneself
that would help them control the spirits against them; purification, the ridding
of these spirits; immersion, the replacement of these spirits; and, regulation of
movement, the restoration of the soul to the body. Physicians applied these
psychological procedures to patients diagnosed with madness, and so the cure
for madness became a scientific process instead of a moral, ethical policing. On
Freud, Foucault concludes in the chapter (p. 198), he did not make any
psychological, suggestive treatments to madness; instead, he insisted that it be
engaged with a positivist dialogue.

The Reversal

There are many commonalities and contrasts abound between Comte

and Foucault. Foucauldian philosophy, however, I attempt to show, is
(partially) a product of Comtian thinking in many ways. First, there is the
application of Comtes positivism into Foucaults madness. Then, there is the
questioning of the use of Comtes philosophy in Foucault. Next, Foucault has
queered the eects of the rise of science as proposed by Comte. Finally, there is
the reversal of both the specifiability and generalizability of Comtes work into
Foucaults.
Essentially, the application of Comtes positivism in Foucaults history
of madness is sensible. The three stages of Comte can be seen in Foucaults
three stages. The Renaissance forms the Theological stage of the treatment of
madness. Western society then was treating madness as if it was a supernatural,
eschatological phenomenon, while they start to distinguish reason from
unreason. Next, the Classical Age forms the Metaphysical stage of the
treatment of madness. Society then thought of madness as something that had
to be confined in society so that its unethicality, its unreason, its lack of
morality gives way to the work that people need to do in order to survive.
Lastly, the Modern Age forms the Positive stage of the treatment of madness.
Doctors treat madness and patients are diagnosed with madness, and this
madness is treated within the dialogue and language of the scientific method.
Instead of attributing madness to the supernatural or to the moral, it is

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attributed to the psychological and the psychiatric; hence the transformation of
the madhouses into mental institutions (Foucault, 1988).
Foucault, in his book, practically questioned the purpose of the
development of scientific thinking that Comte presented. Mill (1865) notes
that Comte suggests the rise of the scientific method leads to the production of
knowledge and the proposal of solutions to societal problems. Without the
production of scientific knowledge, we will have no way of mending the
multiple issues that society faces even up to today. Foucault agrees that the
scientific method can be used to obtain knowledge. However, with his concept
of powerknowledge, he draws the idea that scientific knowledge empowers
certain individuals and institutions to subjugate objects of power, and that can
create societal problems of its own.
In this sense, Foucault has also queered the very eects of the rise of
scientific knowledge in Comtes philosophy. While Comtes version of scientific
knowledge liberates individuals and structures alike from their own problems,
Foucault emerges from this idea by claiming that powerknowledge actually
gives the ability of individuals and institutions to survey and control peoples
thoughts and actions (see panopticism in Foucault, 1995), eectively and
essentially limiting and de-liberalizing these individuals, excluding them from
society, making that society less progressive, and not solving the problems it
faces.
Comtes philosophy is based on a general background of the rise of
science from theology and then morality. As explained earlier, Comtes
positivism came out of a societal need to address issues that surround a
community or society. Comte draws from various philosophers, both
contemporary and recent, as Mill (1865) notes. Foucaults philosophical
background, however, is very specificmadness and the institution, and
eventually, the birth of the prison. Like Comte, Foucault notes that the
control of madness was done as a way to curb societal issues and problems, in
order for people to be able to work for survival and for society (or the state).
But, unlike Comte, Foucault draws from the examples of literature and more
obscure philosophy and history into his thinking, specifies this into the concept
of madness and how it is controlled, and finally makes this into a basis for the
rise of science as a form of social control.
Comtes work is specifiable to (almost) every science and society in the
world today. One of Comtes idea is that each field of science has been
responsibly founded on the notions of the work of a Being, then having such
work being questioned into morality, and finally having such work being
questioned again into positivism. Take social physics, or sociology as an

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example: first, social phenomena was explained in the light of Gods work or
plan, and then social issues were resolved in the light of social mores and
morality; finally, social problems were inevitably, at least for Comte, addressed
in the light of science, by ensuring that empirical methods were used in order
to pinpoint, resolve, and treat such problems. Foucaults work, on the other
hand, is generalizable to many phenomena across various societies, for example,
media, advertising, and communication, all as a form of social control, which
then rids itself of those who cannot conform to certain actions acceptable to
society and to oneself, and those who cannot confine themselves to these
actions.

Conclusion

The themes and use of Comtes philosophy are highly visible in

Foucault. The development of knowledge and madness are parallel to each
other; both derive from the thinking about the god(s) and both come through
a phase of ethics and morality, until finally it arrives into scientific inquiry.
However, dierences are also very obvious between both thinkings. Comtes
thinking may be said to be optimistic, while Foucault can be seen as pessimistic
about their view of the world. In this sense, they dialogue with each other,
though speaking from dierent historical contexts, and such a dialogue is truly
the centerpiece of scientific thinking.

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 References
Comte, A. (1856). Positive philosophy. New York: Calvin Blanchard. Freely
translated and condensed by H. Martineau.
Foucault, M. (1988) [1961]. Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in
the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage.
Foucault, M. (1990) [1976]. The history of sexuality 1 (An introduction). New
York: Vintage.
Foucault, M. (1995) [1975]. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New
York: Vintage.
Mill, J. S. (1865). Auguste Comte and positivism. London: Trbner.

Nazario, Iigo Ricardo Alphonse R.

Darren Gustafson
PH 103 GG
Thursday, 3 November 2016