Auguste Comte

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani often returns to Comte's law of three stages (religious, metaphysical, positive) and holds positivism to be a position that deserves respect1. In his view, it is a courageous way of thinking and was progress in its time: it comes out of the Enlightenment, stands against idealist obscurantism and the dominant Romanticism, and, following on from Kant, gives up first and final causes23. He also points out its limits: positivism is reductive and mechanistic, and it classifies the sciences without unifying them dialectically4. Like Hegel without knowing it, Comte sees progress in the disappearance of personified gods. Pagani distinguishes him from neopositivism, which does away with the advances of its time, and sees his positivism coming back with the cognitive sciences. He often quotes two of Comte's sayings: the philosopher is a "specialist in generalities", and one cannot stand on the balcony and watch oneself walk by in the street, a phrase he reads as a rejection of introspection5. He faults him, however, for never suspecting that the subject is split6. Finally, he notes that Comte is among the first to use the word "sociology", though only as a programme.

1. 1De Copernic à Lénine: Révolution !28 Aug 2026 · 1:12:36
2. 2#4.9 Angélique (de Nerval)14 Jun 2018 · 29:57
3. 3#2 Lénine ou les ailes du rêve18 Apr 2021 · 24:29
4. 4Musicosophie 12. Nietzsche (tout) contre Wagner28 Jan 2021 · 44:06
5. 5Mann (Thomas)23 Oct 2019 · 39:24
6. 6De Copernic à Lénine: Révolution !28 Aug 2026 · 1:19:28

Summary produced automatically from 31 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.