The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte
The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte
Harriet Martineau
£46.00
GBPThe Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte is a condensed English version of the French philosopher's controversial work, freely translated by Harriet Martineau and published in two volumes in 1853. Martineau's abridged and more easily digestible version of Comte's work was intended to be readily accessible to a wide general readership, particularly those she felt to be morally and intellectually adrift, and Comte's philosophy indeed attracted a significant following in Britain in the later nineteenth century. Comte's 'doctrine' promoted personal and public ethics and social cohesion based no longer on metaphysics but on strict scientific method, and anticipated twentieth-century logical positivism and secular humanism. The first volume of this translation contains Parts 1 to 5 and sets out the nature and importance of positivism, leading on to an overview of the 'positive sciences': mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology.
Product details
July 2009Paperback
9781108001199
524 pages
216 × 140 × 30 mm
0.66kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Account of the aim of this work – View of the nature and importance of the Positive Philosophy
- 2. View of the hierarchy of the positive sciences
- Part I. Mathematics:
- 1. Mathematics, abstract and concrete
- 2. General view of mathematical analysis
- 3. General view of geometry
- 4. Rational mechanics
- Part II. Astronomy:
- 1. General view
- 2. Methods of study of astronomy
- 3. Geometrical phenomena of the heavenly bodies
- 4. Celestial statics
- 5. Celestial dynamics
- 6. Sidereal astronomy and cosmogony
- Part III. Physics:
- 1. General view
- 2. Barology
- 3. Thermology
- 4. Acoustics
- 5. Optics
- 6. Electrology
- Part IV. Chemistry:
- 1. General view
- 2. Inorganic Chemistry
- 3. Doctrine of definite proportions
- 4. The electro-chemical theory
- 5. Organic chemistry
- Part V. Biology:
- 1. General view of biology
- 2. Anatomical philosophy
- 3. Biotaxic philosophy
- 4. Organic or vegetative life
- 5. The animal life
- 6. Intellectual and moral or cerebral functions.
