Law of the Three Stages

• August Comte identified three basic stages

and proceeded to argue that the human
mind, people through the maturation
process, all branches of knowledge, and the
history of the world all pass successively
through these three stages.
• 1.The Theological Stage
• 2.The Metaphysical Stage
• 3.The Positivistic Stage
 1.The Theological Stage （ before 13c)
• In this stage ,the human mind is searching for
the essential nature of things, particularly their
origin(where do they come from?) and their
purpose (why do they exist?).
• What this comes down to is the search for
absolute knowledge, it is assumed that all
phenomena are created, regulated, and given
their purposes by supernatural forces or
beings(gods).
 2.The Metaphysical Stage(13c-18c)
• It is a transitional stage between the preceding
theological stage and the ensuing positivistic
stage.
• In the metaphysical stage, abstract forces replace
supernatural beings as the explanation for the
original causes and purposes of things in the
world.
• Mysterious forces such as “nature” are invoked
to explain why things are the way they are.
 3.The Positivistic Stage( after 18c)
• This is the final and most important stage in Comte’s
system. At this stage, 　 people give up their search
for original causes or purposes. People drop such
nonscientific ideas as supernatural beings and
mysterious forces.
• In this stage, people look for the invariable natural
laws that govern all phenomena ． the search for
these laws involves both doing empirical research
and theorizing.
• Comte differentiated between concrete and abstract
laws. concrete laws must come inductively from
empirical research, whereas abstract laws must be
derived deductively from theory.
 Four basic methods
• Comte explicitly identified four basic
methods for sociology—four basic ways of
doing social research in order to gain
empirical knowledge of the real social world.
• The first is the observation
• The second is the experiment
• The third is the comparison
• The forth is the historical research
 1.Observation
• Observations should be directed by some
theory, and when made, they should be
connected to some law.
• Direction observation and indirection
observation
 2.Experiment
• This method is better suited to the other
sciences than it is to sociology. It is
obviously virtually impossible to interfere
with, and to attempt to control, social
phenomena.
 3.Comparison

• Three subtypes.
• First, we can compare humans to lower
animal societies.
• Second, we can compare societies in
different parts of the world.
• Third, we can compare the different stages
of societies over time. (particularly
important)
 4.Historical research
• Most important method in sociology.
• Comte wrote: “necessity of historical
studies as the foundation of sociological
speculation”
 Comte's 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..