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Auguste Comte ( 1796 – 1857 )
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Muglioni, Jacques |
| Abstract | A strange destiny! The whole of Comte’s life is a romance. His successors are divided between two attitudes—the incomprehension of disciples of limited outlook, and the indifference, or even hostility, of thinkers who could have learned a great deal, if only they had read him. The mathematician in him fulminated against the limitations of calculus: he was as severe with the scientists of his time as he was with the writers and journalists. As founder of positivism, he went so far as to conclude that science was a thing of the past, whereas the future belonged to art. He saw in the French Revolution the greatest event in universal history, while at the same time he thought only of putting an end to the crisis it had brought about. This examiner at the Ecole Polytechnique extolled pure love. This man of faith announced the end of superstition and, at the same time, instituted the Religion of Humanity. He condemned the abstract feminism of the ‘negative’ period, but only in order to give women a leading place in a regenerate humanity. His admirable correspondence with Clotilde de Vaux during the ‘year without parallel’ (1845) was to prompt Alain to say that Musset’s Les nuits were indeed read! The difficulty is how to read the ten volumes of Comte’s work without bothering about the commentaries, most of which are mediocre or even mendacious. The reader is rewarded at times on discovering a lucidity, on the verge of madness, found only in Kant and Hegel, who, apart from Comte, are perhaps the last great names in the history of philosophy as inaugurated by Plato. Thus, we are in the presence of an author who will be a closed book to readers who are devotees of modernity. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/Publications/thinkerspdf/comtes.PDF |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.ibe.unesco.org/sites/default/files/comtee.PDF |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
