Although Auguste Comte is conventionally acknowledged as one of the founders of sociology and as a key representative of positivism, few new editions of his writings have been published in the English language in this century. He has become virtually dissociated from the history of modern positivism and the most recent debates about it. Gertrud Lenzer maintains that the work of Comte is, for better or for worse, essential to an understanding of the modern period of positivism. This collection (...) provides new access to the work of Comte and gives practitioners of various disciplines the possibility of reassessing concepts that were first introduced in Comte's writings. Today much of the ordinary business of academic disciplines is conducted under the assumption that the realm of science is essentially separate from the realms of politics and science. A close reading of Comte will reveal how deeply such current ideas and theories were originally embedded in a particular political context. One of his central methodological principles was that the theory of society had to be removed from the arena of political practice precisely in order to control that practice by means of these same sciences. It is in Comte's work that the reader will be able to observe how the forces of social and political reaction began to be powerfully organized to combat the critical forces in its own and later eras. Auguste Comte and Positivism will be of importance to the work of philosophers, sociologists, political theorists, and historians. (shrink)

" Pour devenir un parfait philosophe, il me manquait surtout une passion, a la fois profonde et pure, qui me fit assez apprecier la partie affective de la nature humaine " note Auguste Comte dans ses " Prieres quotidiennes " redigees peu apres 1845, cette " annee sans pareille " au cours de laquelle il rencontre, frequente et voit disparaitre Clotilde de Vaux a laquelle il voue un amour eperdu. Cette relation aussi profonde et intense que physiquement ephemere ne (...) bouleverse pas seulement la vie privee du fondateur du positivisme. La decouverte du role preponderant de l'affectivite dans les relations humaines et sociales inflechit de maniere definitive la doctrine positiviste dont la nouvelle devise devient L'amour pour principe, l'ordre pour base et le progres pour but. L'edifice theorique qu'est le Systeme de politique positive developpe l'idee d'un " nouveau pouvoir spirituel " qui prendra la forme d'une " religion de l'Humanite " a laquelle l'ordre et le progres doivent etre subordonnes, de meme que l'esprit au cur. Ce numero explore sous differents angles les implications de cet inflechissement majeur a l'uvre dans la philosophie positive, et sa complexe actualite. (shrink)

t. 1.- Cours de philosophie positive. v. 1: Les préliminaires généraux et la philosophie mathématique.--v. 2: La philosophie astronomique et la philosophie de la physique. v. 3: La philosophie chimique et la philosophie biologique.

Selections from the most important and representative writings of the philosopher, economist, social reformer and political activist August Cieszkowski (1814 1894).

t. 1. Les religions de l'Inde, et Bulletins des religions de l'Inde (1880-1885) -- t. 2. Bulletins des religions de l'Inde (1889-1902) -- t. 3. Comptes rendus et notices (1872-1886) -- t. 4. Comptes rendus et notices (1887-1898) -- t. 5. Comptes rendus et notices (1899-1911). Bibiliographie. Index général.

t. 1. Des origines à la scolastique.--t. 2 De la scolastique à l'époque classique.--t. 3. L'époque classique.--t. 4. Philosophie française et philosophie anglaise de 1700 à 1830.--t. 5. La philosophie allemande, de 1700 à 1850.--ptie. 1. De l'Aufklärung à Schelling.--ptie. 2. De Hegel à Schopenhauer.

The moral responsibility literature frequently relies on both explicit and implicit claims about “ideal” or “normal” agency that import unjustified normative assumptions into our theorizing. In doing so, it both fails to reckon with and misconstrues the reality of agential diversity. In this article I diagnose the root of this problem, which I trace back to the confluence of two factors: the search for fundamental agential capacities, and systemic discrimination toward psychological variance. I then preview three socially and politically important (...) domains of inquiry that have been obscured by this paradigm as a way of motivating the need for and value of applying a neurodiversity perspective to moral responsibility and the ethics of blame. (shrink)

In A General View of Positivism French philosopher Auguste Comte gives an overview of his social philosophy known as Positivism. Comte, credited with coining the term 'sociology' and one of the first to argue for it as a science, is concerned with reform, progress and the problem of social order in society. In this English edition of the work, published in 1865, he addresses the practical problems of implementing his philosophy or doctrine, as he also refers to Positivism, into (...) society. He believes that society evolves through a series of stages that are ruled by social laws and culminate in a superior form of social life. During this reorganisation of society, which will find its greatest supporters among women and the working class, a 'new moral power' will emerge. Under the motto 'love, order and progress' Comte wishes humanism to replace organised religion as the object of spiritual worship. (shrink)

Tome I : 2. L'introduction fondamentale -- tome II. [No special title].

In this revolutionary work, the author sets the stage for the science of the 21st Century, pursuing an unprecedented synthesis of fields previously considered unrelated. Beginning with simple classical concepts, he ends with a complex multidisciplinary theory requiring a high level of abstraction. The work progresses across the sciences in several multidisciplinary directions: Mathematical logic, fundamental physics, computer science and the theory of intelligence. Extraordinarily enough, the author breaks new ground in all these fields. In the field of fundamental physics (...) the author reaches the revolutionary conclusion that physics can be viewed and studied as logic in a fundamental sense, as compared with Einstein's view of physics as space-time geometry. This opens new, exciting prospects for the study of fundamental interactions. A formulation of logic in terms of matrix operators and logic vector spaces allows the author to tackle for the first time the intractable problem of cognition in a scientific manner. In the same way as the findings of Heisenberg and Dirac in the 1930s provided a conceptual and mathematical foundation for quantum physics, matrix operator logic supports an important breakthrough in the study of the physics of the mind, which is interpreted as a fractal of quantum mechanics. Introducing a concept of logic quantum numbers, the author concludes that the problem of logic and the intelligence code in general can be effectively formulated as eigenvalue problems similar to those of theoretical physics. With this important leap forward in the study of the mechanism of mind, the author concludes that the latter cannot be fully understood either within classical or quantum notions. A higher-order covariant theory is required to accommodate the fundamental effect of high-level intelligence. The landmark results obtained by the author will have implications and repercussions for the very foundations of science as a whole. Moreover, Stern's Matrix Logic is suitable for a broad spectrum of practical applications in contemporary technologies. (shrink)

"Après la proclamation de la république, en 1848, Auguste Comte (1798-1857), le fondateur du positivisme, remanie son système et fonde la religion de l'Humanité. Considérant que le moment est venu de terminer la révolution et de donner à la société son organisation définitive, il expose son programme, de 1849 à 1851, dans des leçons publiques sur l'histoire de l'Humanité destinées à rallier le peuple parisien, où il dresse le tableau de l'avenir d'après l'ensemble du passé et prépare ce qui (...) allait devenir le Système de politique positive (1851-1854). Aucune trace écrite de cet enseignement ne nous était parvenue jusqu'à la découverte récente du manuscrit de César Lefort, un document unique qui nous renseigne sur la forme et les enjeux de ce que Comte appelait lui-même ses « prédications hebdomadaires ». L'édition critique de ce cours comporte une introduction dans laquelle L. Fedi restitue le contexte et étudie les transformations doctrinales et organisationnelles du positivisme."--Back cover. (shrink)

Oswald Spengler (1880 - 1936) war ein deutscher Geschichtsphilosoph und Kulturhistoriker. Das hier vorliegende Werk August Messers über Spengler erscheint nur wenige Jahre nachdem Spengler mit seiner Zyklentheorie, die sich gegen eine lineare Geschichtsschreibung ausspricht, an die Öffentlichkeit getreten ist. Messer reflektiert diese und spürt den philosophischen Grundanschauungen Spenglers in ihrem innersten Zusammenhange nach. Auf diese Weise gelingt es Messer, ein sensibles und differenziertes Bild Oswald Spenglers und seiner Ideenwelt zu zeichnen. Sorgfältig bearbeiteter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1924.

Orthodoxy holds that the difference between weakness of will and compulsion is a matter of the resistibility of an agent's effective motivation, which makes control-based views of agency especially well equipped to distinguish blameworthy weak-willed acts from non-blameworthy compulsive acts. I defend an alternative view that the difference between weakness and compulsion instead lies in the fact that agents would upon reflection give some conative weight to acting on their weak-willed desires for some aim other than to extinguish them, but (...) not to their compulsive desires. This view allows identificationist theorists of moral responsibility to explain why weak-willed actions, but not compulsive actions, are attributable to agents such that they can, in theory, be praised or blamed for them. After motivating and presenting the view in detail, I show how it has unique resources for explaining the ethics of managing one's compulsions. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Prolegomena zur Historiosophie" verfügbar.

Chez Auguste Comte, la connaissance ne saurait dépasser la sphère des lois scientifiques. Aussi la philosophie positive, expression par laquelle Comte désigne sa conception, se définit-elle comme une discipline ayant pour objet la coordination des faits observés, sans nulle prétention à aller au-delà des acquisitions de la science expérimentale.Cette philosophie positive d'Auguste Comte porte aussi le nom de positivisme, qui, chez Auguste Comte, désigne la conception selon laquelle l'esprit humain ne saurait atteindre le fond des choses et (...) doit se borner à la seule recherche des lois de la nature, conçues comme des relation s invariables de succession et de similitude. (shrink)

While Alexis de Tocqueville described America as the 'absolute democracy,' Karl Marx saw the nation as a 'defiled republic' so long as it permitted the enslavement of blacks. August J. Nimtz argues that Marx, unlike Tocqueville, not only recognized that the overthrow of slavery and the cessation of racial oppression were central to democracy's realization but was willing to act on these convictions. This potent and insightful investigation into the approaches of two major thinkers provides fresh insight into past and (...) present debates about race and democracy in America. (shrink)

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections (...) in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. (shrink)