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This book provides the only detailed, systematic philosophical reconsideration of the neglected nineteenth-century positivist Auguste Comte currently available. Apart from offering an accurate account of what Comte actually wrote, the book argues for the provocative thesis that Comte's positivism actually has greater contemporary relevance now that no one wants to be a positivist. Providing lucid exposition and informed by considerable new scholarship on Comte's work, this book will be valuable to philosophers, especially philosophers of science and those interested in post-positivist developments in Anglo-American philosophy, to a wide range of intellectual historians, and to historians of science and psychology.
List of contents
Introduction: Comte for a post-positivist world; Part I. Comte Then: 1. Mill versus Comte on 'interior observation'; 2. Mill versus Comte as positivist philosophers of science; 3. Comte's three-stage law; Part II. Comte Now: 4. Comte's ambiguous legacy: science defended or already justified?; 5. Cartesian ahistoricism and later epistemic analysis; 6. Comte and the very idea of a post-positivist philosophy; 7. Comte for tomorrow?
About the author
Robert C. Scharff is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire and Executive Director of ITERATA, a non-profit institute for the study of interdisciplinarity in science, industry, and higher education. He is author of How History Matters to Philosophy (2015), Comte After Positivism (2002), and numerous papers on 19th and 20th century positivism, postpositivism, and continental philosophy; co-editor (with Val Dusek) of The Philosophy of Technology (2003, 2014); and former editor of Continental Philosophy Review (1994-2005).
Summary
This 1996 book provides a detailed, systematic reconsideration of the neglected nineteenth-century positivist Auguste Comte. Apart from offering an accurate account of what Comte actually wrote, the book argues that Comte's positivism has never had greater contemporary relevance than now.
