{"id":434,"date":"2019-12-30T13:29:44","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T13:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-philosophy1\/?post_type=chapter&p=434"},"modified":"2025-12-18T14:00:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T14:00:03","slug":"4-3-4-1-from-modern-enlightenment-to-19th-century-philosophy-positivism-and-politics","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-philosophy1\/chapter\/4-3-4-1-from-modern-enlightenment-to-19th-century-philosophy-positivism-and-politics\/","title":{"raw":"5.2: From Modern (Enlightenment) to 19th Century Philosophy: Positivism and Politics","rendered":"5.2: From Modern (Enlightenment) to 19th Century Philosophy: Positivism and Politics"},"content":{"raw":"
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Positivism and social theory in\u00a0<\/span>Comte,\u00a0<\/span>Mill, and\u00a0<\/span>Marx<\/h2>\r\nThe absolute idealists wrote as if the Renaissance methodologists of the sciences had never existed. But if in Germany the\u00a0empirical<\/a>\u00a0and scientific tradition in philosophy lay dormant, in France and England in the middle of the 19th century it was very much alive. In France, Auguste Comte wrote his great philosophical\u00a0history of science<\/a>,\u00a0Cours de philosophie positive<\/em>\u00a0(1830\u201342; \u201cCourse of Positive Philosophy\u201d; Eng. trans.\u00a0<\/span>The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte<\/a><\/em>), in six volumes. Influenced by Bacon and the entire school of British\u00a0empiricism<\/a>, by the doctrine of progress put forward by Turgot and the marquis de\u00a0Condorcet<\/a>\u00a0(1743\u201394) during the 18th century, and by the very original social reformer\u00a0<\/span>Henri de Saint-Simon<\/a>\u00a0(1760\u20131825), Comte called his philosophy \u201cpositivism,\u201d by which he meant a\u00a0<\/span>philosophy of science<\/a>\u00a0so narrow that it denied any validity whatsoever to \u201cknowledge\u201d not derived through the accepted methods of science. But the\u00a0Cours de philosophie positive<\/em>\u00a0made its point not by\u00a0dialectic<\/a>\u00a0but by an appeal to the history of thought, and here Comte presented his two basic ideas:\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. \r\n
  2. \r\n
    The so-called \u201c<\/span>law of the three stages<\/a>,\u201d which views thought in every field as passing progressively from superstition to science by first being religious, then abstract, or\u00a0metaphysical<\/a>, and finally positive, or scientific.<\/div><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nComte\u2019s contribution was to initiate an antireligious and an antimetaphysical bias in the philosophy of science that survived into the 20th century.\r\n\r\nIn mid-19th-century England the chief representative of the empirical tradition from Bacon to Hume was\u00a0John Stuart Mill<\/a>. Mill\u2019s\u00a0theory of knowledge<\/a>, best represented in his\u00a0<\/span>Examination of Sir William Hamilton\u2019s Philosophy<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1865), was not particularly original but rather a judicious combination of the doctrines of Berkeley and Hume; it symbolized his mistrust of vague\u00a0metaphysics<\/a>, his denial of the a priori element in knowledge, and his determined opposition to any form of intuitionism. It is in his enormously influential\u00a0<\/span>A System of Logic<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1843), however, that Mill\u2019s chief theoretical ideas are to be found.\r\n\r\nThis work\u2014as part of its subtitle,\u00a0the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation<\/em>, indicates\u2014was concerned less with\u00a0formal logic<\/a>\u00a0than with scientific\u00a0methodology<\/a>. Mill made here the fundamental distinction between\u00a0deduction<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>induction<\/a>, defined\u00a0induction<\/a>\u00a0as the process for discovering and proving general propositions, and presented his \u201cfour methods of experimental inquiry\u201d as the heart of the inductive method. These methods were, in fact, only an enlarged and refined version of Francis Bacon\u2019s \u201ctables of discovery.\u201d But the most significant section of\u00a0A System of Logic<\/em>\u00a0was its conclusion, Book VI,\u00a0On the Logic of the Moral Sciences<\/em>.\r\n\r\nMill took the experience of the uniformity of nature as the warrant of induction. Here he reaffirmed the belief of Hume that it is possible to apply the principle of\u00a0causation<\/a>\u00a0and the methods of\u00a0physical science<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0moral<\/a>\u00a0and social phenomena. These may be so complex as to yield only \u201cconditional predictions,\u201d but in this sense there are \u201csocial laws.\u201d Thus Comte and Mill agreed on the possibility of a genuine\u00a0social science<\/a>.\r\n\r\nMill\u2019s\u00a0Logic<\/em>\u00a0was extremely influential, and it continued to be taught at Oxford and Cambridge well into the 20th century, but in the end his importance lay less in logic and epistemology than in\u00a0ethics<\/a>\u00a0and political philosophy. Mill was the great apostle of political liberalism in the 19th century, a true follower of\u00a0John Locke<\/a>. And, just as Locke and Rousseau had represented the liberal and the radical wings of social theory in the early modern period, so Mill and\u00a0Karl Marx<\/a>\u00a0represented the liberal and radical approaches to social reform 100 years later.\r\n\r\nMill was raised by social reformers\u2014his father,\u00a0James Mill<\/a>\u00a0(1773\u20131836), and\u00a0Jeremy Bentham<\/a>. His social theory was an attempt, by gradual means arrived at democratically, to combat the evils of the\u00a0Industrial Revolution<\/a>. His\u00a0ethics<\/a>, expressed in his\u00a0<\/span>Utilitarianism<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1861), followed the formulations of Bentham in finding the end of society to consist in the production of the greatest quantity of happiness for its members, but he gave to Bentham\u2019s cruder (but more consistent) doctrines a humanistic and individualistic slant. Thus, the moral self-development of the individual becomes the ultimate value in Mill\u2019s ethics.\r\n\r\nThis trend was also expressed in his essays\u00a0<\/span>On Liberty<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1859) and\u00a0<\/span>Considerations on Representative Government<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1861). In the former he stated the case for the freedom of the individual against \u201cthe\u00a0tyranny<\/a>\u00a0of the majority,\u201d presented strong arguments in favour of complete freedom of thought and discussion, and argued that no state or society has the right to prevent the free development of human individuality. In the latter he provided a classic defense for the principle of representative\u00a0democracy<\/a>, asked for the adequate representation of minorities, urged renewed public participation in political action for necessary social reforms, and pointed out the dangers of class-oriented, or special-interest, legislation.\r\n\r\nA radical counterbalance to Mill\u2019s liberal ideas was provided by the philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary Karl Marx. Prior to 1848, Marx used the Hegelian\u00a0idea<\/a>\u00a0of estrangement (which Hegel had used in a metaphysical sense) to indicate the\u00a0<\/span>alienation<\/a>\u00a0of the worker from the enjoyment of the products of his labour, the crass treatment of human labour as a mere commodity and human beings as mere things, and the general dehumanization of individuals in a selfish, profit-seeking capitalist society.\r\n\r\nIn\u00a0<\/span>The Communist Manifesto<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1848), which he wrote with his colleague and friend\u00a0Friedrich Engels<\/a>\u00a0(1820\u201395), Marx yielded to the revolutionary temper of the times by calling for the violent overthrow of the existing social order (as Rousseau had done before the French Revolution). All of history, Marx said, is the\u00a0<\/span>struggle<\/a>\u00a0between an exploiting minority and an exploited majority, most recently between the\u00a0bourgeoisie<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0proletariat<\/a>; and he advocated the formation of a Communist Party to stimulate proletarian\u00a0class consciousness<\/a>\u00a0and to encourage the proletarian seizure of power and the institution of a just and democratically managed\u00a0<\/span>socialist<\/a>\u00a0society. (See<\/em>\u00a0communism<\/a>;\u00a0socialism<\/a>.)\r\n\r\nMarx\u2019s revolutionary fervour tended to harm his philosophical reputation in the West, and his philosophical achievement remains a matter of controversy. But certain of his ideas (some Hegelian in inspiration, some original) have endured. Among these are:\r\n
      \r\n \t
    1. \r\n
    2. \r\n
      That there is no conflict between a rigid economic determinism and a program of revolutionary action.<\/div><\/li>\r\n \t
    3. \r\n
      That ideas (including philosophical theories) are not purely rational and thus cannot be independent of external circumstances but depend upon the nature of the social order in which they arise.<\/div><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/section><\/section><\/section>","rendered":"
      \n
      \n
      \n

      Positivism and social theory in\u00a0<\/span>Comte,\u00a0<\/span>Mill, and\u00a0<\/span>Marx<\/h2>\n

      The absolute idealists wrote as if the Renaissance methodologists of the sciences had never existed. But if in Germany the\u00a0empirical<\/a>\u00a0and scientific tradition in philosophy lay dormant, in France and England in the middle of the 19th century it was very much alive. In France, Auguste Comte wrote his great philosophical\u00a0history of science<\/a>,\u00a0Cours de philosophie positive<\/em>\u00a0(1830\u201342; \u201cCourse of Positive Philosophy\u201d; Eng. trans.\u00a0<\/span>The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte<\/a><\/em>), in six volumes. Influenced by Bacon and the entire school of British\u00a0empiricism<\/a>, by the doctrine of progress put forward by Turgot and the marquis de\u00a0Condorcet<\/a>\u00a0(1743\u201394) during the 18th century, and by the very original social reformer\u00a0<\/span>Henri de Saint-Simon<\/a>\u00a0(1760\u20131825), Comte called his philosophy \u201cpositivism,\u201d by which he meant a\u00a0<\/span>philosophy of science<\/a>\u00a0so narrow that it denied any validity whatsoever to \u201cknowledge\u201d not derived through the accepted methods of science. But the\u00a0Cours de philosophie positive<\/em>\u00a0made its point not by\u00a0dialectic<\/a>\u00a0but by an appeal to the history of thought, and here Comte presented his two basic ideas:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. \n
      2. \n
        The so-called \u201c<\/span>law of the three stages<\/a>,\u201d which views thought in every field as passing progressively from superstition to science by first being religious, then abstract, or\u00a0metaphysical<\/a>, and finally positive, or scientific.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Comte\u2019s contribution was to initiate an antireligious and an antimetaphysical bias in the philosophy of science that survived into the 20th century.<\/p>\n

        In mid-19th-century England the chief representative of the empirical tradition from Bacon to Hume was\u00a0John Stuart Mill<\/a>. Mill\u2019s\u00a0theory of knowledge<\/a>, best represented in his\u00a0<\/span>Examination of Sir William Hamilton\u2019s Philosophy<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1865), was not particularly original but rather a judicious combination of the doctrines of Berkeley and Hume; it symbolized his mistrust of vague\u00a0metaphysics<\/a>, his denial of the a priori element in knowledge, and his determined opposition to any form of intuitionism. It is in his enormously influential\u00a0<\/span>A System of Logic<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1843), however, that Mill\u2019s chief theoretical ideas are to be found.<\/p>\n

        This work\u2014as part of its subtitle,\u00a0the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation<\/em>, indicates\u2014was concerned less with\u00a0formal logic<\/a>\u00a0than with scientific\u00a0methodology<\/a>. Mill made here the fundamental distinction between\u00a0deduction<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>induction<\/a>, defined\u00a0induction<\/a>\u00a0as the process for discovering and proving general propositions, and presented his \u201cfour methods of experimental inquiry\u201d as the heart of the inductive method. These methods were, in fact, only an enlarged and refined version of Francis Bacon\u2019s \u201ctables of discovery.\u201d But the most significant section of\u00a0A System of Logic<\/em>\u00a0was its conclusion, Book VI,\u00a0On the Logic of the Moral Sciences<\/em>.<\/p>\n

        Mill took the experience of the uniformity of nature as the warrant of induction. Here he reaffirmed the belief of Hume that it is possible to apply the principle of\u00a0causation<\/a>\u00a0and the methods of\u00a0physical science<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0moral<\/a>\u00a0and social phenomena. These may be so complex as to yield only \u201cconditional predictions,\u201d but in this sense there are \u201csocial laws.\u201d Thus Comte and Mill agreed on the possibility of a genuine\u00a0social science<\/a>.<\/p>\n

        Mill\u2019s\u00a0Logic<\/em>\u00a0was extremely influential, and it continued to be taught at Oxford and Cambridge well into the 20th century, but in the end his importance lay less in logic and epistemology than in\u00a0ethics<\/a>\u00a0and political philosophy. Mill was the great apostle of political liberalism in the 19th century, a true follower of\u00a0John Locke<\/a>. And, just as Locke and Rousseau had represented the liberal and the radical wings of social theory in the early modern period, so Mill and\u00a0Karl Marx<\/a>\u00a0represented the liberal and radical approaches to social reform 100 years later.<\/p>\n

        Mill was raised by social reformers\u2014his father,\u00a0James Mill<\/a>\u00a0(1773\u20131836), and\u00a0Jeremy Bentham<\/a>. His social theory was an attempt, by gradual means arrived at democratically, to combat the evils of the\u00a0Industrial Revolution<\/a>. His\u00a0ethics<\/a>, expressed in his\u00a0<\/span>Utilitarianism<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1861), followed the formulations of Bentham in finding the end of society to consist in the production of the greatest quantity of happiness for its members, but he gave to Bentham\u2019s cruder (but more consistent) doctrines a humanistic and individualistic slant. Thus, the moral self-development of the individual becomes the ultimate value in Mill\u2019s ethics.<\/p>\n

        This trend was also expressed in his essays\u00a0<\/span>On Liberty<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1859) and\u00a0<\/span>Considerations on Representative Government<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1861). In the former he stated the case for the freedom of the individual against \u201cthe\u00a0tyranny<\/a>\u00a0of the majority,\u201d presented strong arguments in favour of complete freedom of thought and discussion, and argued that no state or society has the right to prevent the free development of human individuality. In the latter he provided a classic defense for the principle of representative\u00a0democracy<\/a>, asked for the adequate representation of minorities, urged renewed public participation in political action for necessary social reforms, and pointed out the dangers of class-oriented, or special-interest, legislation.<\/p>\n

        A radical counterbalance to Mill\u2019s liberal ideas was provided by the philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary Karl Marx. Prior to 1848, Marx used the Hegelian\u00a0idea<\/a>\u00a0of estrangement (which Hegel had used in a metaphysical sense) to indicate the\u00a0<\/span>alienation<\/a>\u00a0of the worker from the enjoyment of the products of his labour, the crass treatment of human labour as a mere commodity and human beings as mere things, and the general dehumanization of individuals in a selfish, profit-seeking capitalist society.<\/p>\n

        In\u00a0<\/span>The Communist Manifesto<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1848), which he wrote with his colleague and friend\u00a0Friedrich Engels<\/a>\u00a0(1820\u201395), Marx yielded to the revolutionary temper of the times by calling for the violent overthrow of the existing social order (as Rousseau had done before the French Revolution). All of history, Marx said, is the\u00a0<\/span>struggle<\/a>\u00a0between an exploiting minority and an exploited majority, most recently between the\u00a0bourgeoisie<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0proletariat<\/a>; and he advocated the formation of a Communist Party to stimulate proletarian\u00a0class consciousness<\/a>\u00a0and to encourage the proletarian seizure of power and the institution of a just and democratically managed\u00a0<\/span>socialist<\/a>\u00a0society. (See<\/em>\u00a0communism<\/a>;\u00a0socialism<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

        Marx\u2019s revolutionary fervour tended to harm his philosophical reputation in the West, and his philosophical achievement remains a matter of controversy. But certain of his ideas (some Hegelian in inspiration, some original) have endured. Among these are:<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. \n
        2. \n
          That there is no conflict between a rigid economic determinism and a program of revolutionary action.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
        3. \n
          That ideas (including philosophical theories) are not purely rational and thus cannot be independent of external circumstances but depend upon the nature of the social order in which they arise.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n\n\t\t\t
          \n\t\t\t

          Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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          All rights reserved content<\/div>