Abstract

This study concentrates on the so-called first career of Auguste Comte, which extends from his birth in 1798 to the completion of his Cours de philosophie positive in 1842. Based upon published material and three years of archival work in Paris, it explores not only his personal and family life but the cultural, intellectual, social, and political environment that helped to shape his thought. The dissertation argues that from the beginning of his career, Comte distrusted the morally neutral, empirical, quantitative, reductionist, and scientific approach that tends to be associated with his two creations--positivism and sociology. His philosophy always had a practical, political mission. An effort to overcome the chaos produced by the French Revolution, positivism was intended to generate an intellectual revolution that would lead to a moral and political reconstruction characterized by social consensus. The positivist synthesis represented an attempt to balance rationalism and empiricism, materialism and idealism, objectivity and subjectivity, and the ideas of the left and the doctrines of the right. Comte considered his goal to be "spiritual" because it ultimately involved the fundamental reorganization of man's ideas and sentiments, which were the foundations of social life. Contrary to common assumptions, Comte was acutely aware of the power of the emotions, which he believed were the source of intellectual activity and happiness. Thus there was no sudden change of direction from his "first" career to his "second." Even before the blossoming of his love for Clotilde de Vaux in 1845, he was ready to proclaim that the common belief system of positivism was a "religion." Finally, this dissertation explodes the myth that Comte was eager to establish a government of scientists. Instead, he stressed that men who had a general knowledge of the sciences, especially sociology, were the most qualified to become the new spiritual power because they had the greatest sympathy for their fellow man. Comte warned, however, that these men must not be allowed to govern alone, for the reign of the mind would destroy the progress of humanity