Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte
$112.00
USDThis volume continues to explore the life and works of Auguste Comte during his so-called second career. It covers the period from the coup d’état of Louis Napoleon in late 1851 to Comte’s death in 1857. During these early years of the Second Empire, Comte became increasingly conservative and anxious to control his disciples. This study offers the first analysis of the tensions within his movement. Focusing on his second masterpiece, the Système de politique positive, and other important books, such as the Synthèse subjective, Mary Pickering not only sheds light on Comte’s intellectual development but also traces the dissemination of positivism and the Religion of Humanity throughout many parts of the world.
- This biography examines the life and thought of Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism, sociology, the history of science, and the Religion of Humanity
- It offers the first in-depth examination of his disciples and his political movement
- It provides an analysis of one of the most famous couples in history, Comte and Clotilde de Vaux
Reviews & endorsements
"Pickering's exhaustive and well-argued reconstruction of Comte's intellectual career is sure to become an indispensible reference..." -- Biancamaria Fontana, Times Literary Supplement
"Pickering’s is the most complete work on Comte’s life and thought available in any language. It mines published texts, unpublished writings and correspondence, state archives, and both recent and older secondary literature to offer reliable explications of nearly everything Comte ever wrote, correlating each moment of his intellectual evolution to the vicissitudes of his personal life, professional situation, and political context. Its extensive notes, bibliography, and numerous discoveries demonstrate considerable patience and care (the word “endurance” comes to mind). This will be a definitive reference for anyone working on Comte or Positivism. While Pickering offers a perspective particularly rewarding for social scientists interested in this neglected founder, the work also has much to offer historians and philosophers of science, historians of France, and general historians of modernity." —John Tresch, The Journal of Modern History
Product details
September 2009Hardback
9780521119146
682 pages
236 × 164 × 35 mm
1.05kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The coup d'état and its consequences
- 2. Comte's stumblings
- 3. The vicissitudes of Positivism during the early empire
- 4. Système de politique positive: natural and social philosophy
- 5. Système de politique positive: Comte's philosophy of history
- 6. Système de politique positive: Comte's utopia
- 7. The last years: politics and propaganda
- 8. The last flurry of activity: the Testament and Synthèse subjective
- 9. The death of the great priest of humanity and his influence
- Conclusion.
