With Auguste Comte we close the series of philosophers who developed moral and political philosophy and paved the way for liberalism.
Comte, a philosopher from the Continent, France, was a man who actually was interested in the same question as we are: the development of mind....how does the human mind develop and what is the history of that development.
He is interesting for two reasons: first because he is the founding father of the science named sociology and second because in Comte we encounter the final stage of a historical development of mind and a new approach of science: positivism.
Positivism becomes the new scientific attitude. It means that we should ignore any kind of metaphysics or religious believes. Science has to concentrate on the empirical reality only and has to be seen as the only source of real knowledge. based on logic and observation.
There was a positive belief in the fact, that all problems which mankind faces can be solved by the scientific method. For Comte this method consisted of Observation, Experimentation and Comparison.
Most important is to note, that in those days the unlimited belief in the power of science was born and that science and religion were definitely separated now. The final stage of a development.
And Comte had a clear view on how this development evolved during the ages, the development of mind.
The history of science shows that each goes through three stages: the theological, the metaphysical and the positive. The progress of each field through the three stages is not only inevitable, but also irreversible, it is, in addition, asymptotic - that is, we always approach, but never obtain, perfect positive knowledge.
Briefly, Comte's view of each of the three stages is as follows: In the theological stage man views everything as animated by a will and a life similar to his own, which goes through stages from animism till finally monotheism.
Metaphysical thought substitutes abstractions for a personal will: causes and forces replace desires and one great entity, Nature, prevails.
Only in the positive stage is the vain search for absolute knowledge - a knowledge of a final will or first cause - abandoned and the study of laws of relations of succession and resemblance seen as the correct object of man's search.
Comte describes the study of consecutive social states as a new department of the comparative method. This new department was the final science to be developed by man: sociology.
Comte believed that this positive science would reveal the invariable laws of society. And he went even further, science would become the new religion of humanity and he himself appointed himself as the first high priest of this new religion.
That is probably the most interesting point in respect to Comte. What we see during the period of the industrial revolution and after the scientific revolution of the 18th century that began with Locke and Newton, is this belief in an expected allmightiness of science, an idea which we still recognize in our days.
What would Comte say about our time? have we reached the positive stage?
The Discussion
[13:28] Aya Beaumont: Could ideology replace theology in social science?
[13:28] Herman Bergson: Your question Aya...
[13:28] Dar Innis: i think a lot of people have lost their patience with positivism and science as the great messiah
[13:28] Mot Mann is Offline
[13:28] Osrum Sands: agree Dar
[13:28] Herman Bergson: Yes Dar
[13:28] hope63 Shepherd: no
[13:29] Osrum Sands: this era of high or post Modernity suggests that
[13:29] Gudrun Odriscoll: Science is powerful, but religions are trying to establish their powerful positons again. Just look round
[13:29] Herman Bergson: and Aya....at the moment this discussion is very popular
[13:29] Stanley Aviatik: Surely that doesn't excuse the plethora of psuedo scientific nonsense that proliferates today
[13:29] Herman Bergson: Dawkins for instance...
[13:29] Alarice Beaumont: science can only be understand by a minority of people... that is a problem
[13:29] Dar Innis: people seek mystical/hollistic explanations in the new age movement, after feeling religion and science fail to answer their questions
[13:29] hope63 Shepherd: good point alarice..
[13:29] Gudrun Odriscoll: What about Dawkins, he is a rationalist and scientist
[13:29] Cailleach Shan: To Stan.. what were you thinking of specifically?
[13:30] Aya Beaumont: They'll tire soon enough of lighting incense and such.
[13:30] Alarice Beaumont: yes.. they seek it because their mind cannot grap all the scientific explanations
[13:30] Yrol Xingjian: but that, alarice, is also the fault of science, not only the people who do not understand it.
[13:30] Stanley Aviatik: creationism
[13:30] Stanley Aviatik: homeopathy
[13:30] Alarice Beaumont: no not science
[13:30] Stanley Aviatik: and a series of hoodwinking junk
[13:30] Alarice Beaumont: education
[13:30] Alarice Beaumont: i think
[13:30] Gudrun Odriscoll: I think like Alarice, educatin might help
[13:30] Herman Bergson: OK....hold ON for a moment
[13:31] Stanley Aviatik: holding on
[13:31] arabella Ella: so herman did durkheim follow Comte as one of the fathers of sociology?
[13:31] Alarice Beaumont: education should start earlier with those basics.. but not enough people to explain easiliy
[13:31] arabella Ella: and we must not forget i think that sociology also studies religions and religious behaviour
[13:31] Gudrun Odriscoll: Science is not as sexy as cooking for example
[13:31] Herman Bergson: Ok....let's summarize what is said....
[13:31] Alarice Beaumont: lol
[13:31] Alarice Beaumont: don't say that LOL
[13:31] Herman Bergson: plz...:-)
[13:31] Alarice Beaumont: sorry herman
[13:32] Herman Bergson: what we see ..also in this discussion is how we nowadays think of science....
[13:32] hope63 Shepherd: let us know what is cooking herman.
[13:32] Herman Bergson: we also see a double movement....one against religion (Dawkins) and all these New Age theories
[13:33] Herman Bergson: What is interesting is Comte's belief in science and how it influenced the development of science since 1800
[13:34] Alarice Beaumont: because people can break out and do something else ... don't have to follow the herd!
[13:34] Herman Bergson: And there is on thing missing in Comte's theory.....
[13:34] Herman Bergson: He thought that the positive state would be the last one....
[13:34] Herman Bergson: how could he know..:-)
[13:35] Herman Bergson: when I listen to you I get the feeling we are in another state now
[13:35] hope63 Shepherd: what did he-you mean by positive state -state?
[13:35] Yrol Xingjian: oO
[13:35] Cailleach Shan: What would you call it Herman?
[13:35] Dar Innis: i don't think we ever fully came to the positive state
[13:35] Herman Bergson: Good question Cailleach...
[13:35] arabella Ella: perhaps we have moved from a belief in the certainty of science to something more fuzzy ... fuzzy logic, quantum physics, etc .... where the mustical may be justified
[13:36] Aya Beaumont: Peh. The pendulum swings. It swings faster and faster. People clamor for religion now... but they will abandon it when religion doesn't give them what they feel entitled to.
[13:36] Herman Bergson: It depends on how you think about science...
[13:36] Dar Innis: where science replaced religion, and evidence and logic dominate what people think
[13:36] Yrol Xingjian: is it always such a chaos here? :o(
[13:36] hope63 Shepherd: o have trouble to understand what you mean with stat--political or like state of mind..
[13:36] Cailleach Shan: Well, the opposite polarity is the negative.
[13:36] Stanley Aviatik: I think the real question here is why the need to believe in metaphysics
[13:36] Dar Innis: and, newton is certainly the first high preist of science
[13:36] Gudrun Odriscoll: science is interesting for economics, it goes along with an idea of progress
[13:36] Dar Innis: if not bacon
[13:36] Stanley Aviatik: lol
[13:36] Osrum Sands: herman Hopes Q please
[13:37] Herman Bergson: OK....stop...:-)
[13:37] Herman Bergson: Ok STOP for a moment
[13:37] Vajra Raymaker: What do you mean by "metaphysics" Stanley, in your question at : 36?
[13:37] Stanley Aviatik: Religion and the irrational
[13:37] hope63 Shepherd: i give up os:)
[13:37] Cailleach Shan: SHOUT LOUDER HERMAN!!!
[13:38] Herman Bergson: Just a few answers....
[13:38] Herman Bergson: ________________
[13:38] Herman Bergson:
[13:38] Herman Bergson: ** Silence plz ***
[13:38] Herman Bergson: ________________
[13:38] Herman Bergson: ok....Hope...
[13:39] Herman Bergson: Comte saw the development of a science in three stages: Theological, metaphysical and finally positive...
[13:39] Herman Bergson: in the sense as how I described positivism
[13:39] Herman Bergson: But there is the remark of stanley: why belief in metaphysics
[13:40] Herman Bergson: The fundamental question is the epistemological question....
[13:40] Herman Bergson: the seach for certainty of knowledge...
[13:41] Herman Bergson: and when you look at modern philosophy of science like Kuhn and feyerabend
[13:41] Herman Bergson: you get the feeling that all is based on believes only
[13:41] hope63 Shepherd: search with our limited minds.
[13:41] arabella Ella: philosophy teaches us that there is very little if anything that we know for sure ... and that removes a great deal of credibility from any scientific empirical research
[13:41] Herman Bergson: yes Hope that is the paradox
[13:42] Stanley Aviatik: I disagree
[13:42] Herman Bergson: indeed Arabella...that is my point
[13:42] Gudrun Odriscoll: there is the idea of the uncertainty principle in physics, heisenberg ---
[13:42] Dar Innis: positivism likes to stick with what it can tell through the evidence, and its theories or understandings are provisional.
[13:43] Vajra Raymaker: yes, Science would be uncertain even if philosophy did not help it along
[13:43] Cailleach Shan: It would be a very dull world if everything was black and while and there was no mystery for us to experience.
[13:43] hope63 Shepherd: gudrun-lets stick a bit to the philospher we talk about..
[13:43] Taliesin Freund: and there is the problem of induction
[13:43] Stanley Aviatik: Yes, but more certain that, say religion
[13:43] Dar Innis: it sees the search for absolute truths as impractical, a hinderence, and perhaps entirely mistaken.
[13:44] Vajra Raymaker: we should distinguish between subjective certainty and objective impossibility of making an error
[13:44] Gudrun Odriscoll: yes hope, but I brought an example from science, as somebody said that science is somehow about certainty
[13:44] Herman Bergson: yes Dar....I think we have taken a rather pragmatic position now regarding knowledge and science
[13:44] Stanley Aviatik: Good point Gudrun
[13:44] Yrol Xingjian: so, the now-stage, the fourth, (if we say, we reached the third, positive) could be : re-evaluation?
[13:44] Herman Bergson: You are right Gudrun...:-)
[13:45] Cailleach Shan: I thought science was disproving the uncertainty.
[13:45] Herman Bergson: Yes Yrol...maybe it is that
[13:45] Gudrun Odriscoll: and creating new uncertainties that have to be disproved
[13:45] Stanley Aviatik: very good point
[13:46] Yrol Xingjian: i have a question about something said earlier, just a small one...
[13:46] Herman Bergson: and the situation will become more uncertain when we look at the next group of philosophers....especially Darwin...
[13:46] Herman Bergson: Ok Yrol
[13:46] hope63 Shepherd: i wonder what Comte-if he said amongst us-- would sat to the discussion:)
[13:47] Herman Bergson: Well..Hope at the end he really became a believer..ended up with a kind of mystiscism
[13:47] Yrol Xingjian: it was said " In the theological stage man views everything as animated by a will and a life similar to his own, which goes through stages from animism till finally monotheism." so... where is polytheism there, is it meant as "monotheism is a further develeoped sense of religion than polytheism"?
[13:48] Gudrun Odriscoll: was positivism to hard to digest
[13:48] hope63 Shepherd: one shouldn't be afraid of metaphisics....
[13:49] Herman Bergson: polytheism is a stage that according Comte preceded monothism Yrol
[13:49] Yrol Xingjian: hm, it would be intersting, how indian philosophers think about that
[13:49] Dar Innis: well, they have both
[13:49] Gudrun Odriscoll: metaphysics is what it is, but science has moved from metaphysics, some people might embrace it, and re-introduce it into scientific discourse, nothing is that limited anymore, hope. but afraid?
[13:49] Dar Innis: a sort of polytheistic monotheism
[13:49] Yrol Xingjian: but, thanks, question answered :o)
[13:50] hope63 Shepherd: i didn't mean to introduce it gudrun..
[13:50] Herman Bergson: If I try to define my own position....I agree with Stanley..why the need of metaphysics and beyond..
[13:51] Gudrun Odriscoll: I did not understand why you talk about fear. NP daaaaahling
[13:51] hope63 Shepherd: well.. does humanity really need science?:)
[13:51] Herman Bergson: on the other hand in regard to human behavior....religion seems an essential part too
[13:52] Herman Bergson: I think that that is an impractical question Hope...
[13:52] Herman Bergson: it already implies a theory of man
[13:52] Dar Innis: i think organized religion was a political neccesity in the agricultural boom.
[13:52] Osrum Sands: science is but a word describing a diverse range of things
[13:52] Cailleach Shan: Does metaphysics need to be necessarily about religion? To me its about exploring the subtle dimensions of existence.
[13:52] Vajra Raymaker: Scientific theories include ontologies, ontology is a part of metaphsycis, hence metaphysics is a part of science essentially
[13:52] Yrol Xingjian: isnt science only a non-personal type of religion?
[13:52] Herman Bergson: No...metaphysics isnt theology
[13:52] Stanley Aviatik: Herman - do you feel there is a need to differentiate 'belief' from 'faith'
[13:53] hope63 Shepherd: impractical.. but if we look at some societies in papua -guinea or at the time in the amazonaws did they need it..
[13:53] Herman Bergson: yes Stanley..
[13:53] Gudrun Odriscoll: I think that science has less to do with belief than religion, though belief in scientific discovery and processes might be necessary
[13:54] Stanley Aviatik: I feel the difference is that faith is belief without any evidence
[13:54] Herman Bergson: If you look at Kant you might think that our knowledge is based on believes only
[13:54] Yrol Xingjian: replace "belief" with "faith", gudrun, then i agree :o)
[13:54] hope63 Shepherd: ok.. lets be honest and give the credit to Thales and friends.. because science without mathemantics is unthinkable..
[13:54] Yrol Xingjian: hope, so philosophy isnt science?
[13:54] Cailleach Shan: unthinkable science. A contradiction in terms.
[13:55] hope63 Shepherd: good question.. :)
[13:55] Stanley Aviatik: can philosophy be rationalised?
[13:55] Gudrun Odriscoll: philosophy of science though ....
[13:55] arabella Ella: we have a lot of other beliefs besides religious beliefs which are not based on any evidence
[13:55] Dar Innis: take belief in matter for instance
[13:55] Stanley Aviatik: that is 'faith'
[13:55] arabella Ella: philosophy is the most rational discipline there is
[13:55] Gudrun Odriscoll: superstitions?
[13:55] Herman Bergson: right Arabella.....that is the whole point here
[13:55] Stanley Aviatik: faith
[13:56] Herman Bergson: no..not superstition but pragmatic postulates
[13:56] Osrum Sands: apart from
[13:56] Osrum Sands: Sociology
[13:56] Gudrun Odriscoll: pragmatic postulates as ..?
[13:56] hope63 Shepherd: i think todays science is doing what the old philosophers didn't realize-- pit us into the context of nature instead of the superiour center..
[13:57] Herman Bergson: causality...time....space
[13:57] Stanley Aviatik: valid point hope
[13:57] Yrol Xingjian: "pit" fits there quite nicely, yes, hope
[13:57] Dar Innis: induction, another pragmatic postulate
[13:57] Herman Bergson: yes Dar
[13:57] Cailleach Shan: Have to leave now. Thanks Herman, and everyone. Interesting discussion.
[13:57] hope63 Shepherd: lol yrol..
[13:57] arabella Ella: altho science still treats human beings as special creatures and it still cannot explain a lot of stuff about the brain and our thinking
[13:57] Gudrun Odriscoll: deduction
[13:57] arabella Ella: bye cail
[13:58] Cailleach Shan is Offline
[13:58] Osrum Sands: Its interesting as Comte is about Sociology
[13:58] Osrum Sands: and there has been little discussion about that subjuct
[13:58] Herman Bergson: yes the philosophy of mind is again a popular topic among philosophers
[13:58] Gudrun Odriscoll: there is not only one scientific approach, mind, computational models, neuroscience, ..... AI
[13:58] Osrum Sands: in face we have been doing the micro sociology spoken about by Michael Faucault
[13:59] Herman Bergson: Indeed Gudrun
[13:59] Yrol Xingjian: i actually fear the day we understand fully how the mind works ,because, mankind always did and does, what is possible, regardless, if it is good or brings us forward.
[13:59] hope63 Shepherd: gudrun.. may be you will be the one to explain to me how the word mind is used in english.. sometimes it sounds like brain,, sometimes like spirit.. i'm lost most of the time..
[14:00] Herman Bergson: Well Osrum...you know I tend to focus on the epistemological issues..:-)
[14:00] Osrum Sands: sure
[14:00] Herman Bergson: But it is true...Comte hoped to discover invariable laws of society
[14:00] Dar Innis: like what?
[14:01] Gudrun Odriscoll: mind, consciousness, neurological spectrum, read chalmers, dennet, and some others, can IM you another time
[14:01] Herman Bergson: Dont ask me, Dar..:-)
[14:01] Yrol Xingjian: Sir Bergman, some kind of asimov's "psycho-history"?
[14:01] Dar Innis: lol
[14:01] Guitar Stantz is Offline
[14:01] arabella Ella: well Comte turned sociology into a scientific discipline ... and that was more or less the time when an obsession with everything scientific emerged ... with psychology soon following suit and attempting to beome scientific too ... to gain brownie points
[14:01] hope63 Shepherd: maybe Darwin will be of some help for the future discussion of that:)
[14:01] Herman Bergson: I have Chamlers and Dennet on my desk Gudrun..:-)
[14:01] Herman Bergson: and Armstrong and Smart too
[14:02] Gudrun Odriscoll: Great, Hermann, I am working with models of consciousness for my PhD
[14:02] Herman Bergson: Ah....
[14:02] hope63 Shepherd: lets wait Gudrun.. lets not do an overkill on the guys of 1815:)
[14:02] Alarice Beaumont: lol
[14:03] Herman Bergson: That is why I talk about a pragmatic stage at the moment...
[14:03] Gudrun Odriscoll: No, did not want to do this, Sorry, but sometimes things are not linear
[14:03] Herman Bergson: At least now we know where we in respect to science came from....:-)
[14:03] hope63 Shepherd: from the ancient greeks to 1815b is rather linear..
[14:04] Herman Bergson: Comte started it..
[14:04] Gudrun Odriscoll: Hope, give it a rest
[14:04] Ganymede Blackburn: Hope, I think it only seems that way in retrospect. :)
[14:04] hope63 Shepherd: :)
[14:04] Herman Bergson: I think our present epistemological situation isnt easy at all...
[14:04] hope63 Shepherd: seems?
[14:04] Herman Bergson: especially also in relation to the philosophy of mind
[14:05] arabella Ella: yes herman i agree we know so much but we also know so little ... if we know anything at all ;)
[14:05] Stanley Aviatik: Is there any other philosophy
[14:05] Herman Bergson: what do you mean Stanley?
[14:06] Osrum Sands: epistemologically speaking this class has been an example of Micro interactionist sociology around the idea of power
[14:06] Stanley Aviatik: Surely all philosophy is cerebral
[14:06] Stanley Aviatik: hence of the mind
[14:06] Herman Bergson: ?????
[14:06] Stanley Aviatik: OK Lets move on
[14:06] hope63 Shepherd: lol.. os.. right on point:)
[14:06] Ze Novikov: lol
[14:06] Gudrun Odriscoll: Osrum, that is an analysis I would like to be analysed further
[14:06] Herman Bergson: the idea of power?
[14:06] arabella Ella: there is also practical philosophy stanley and a new trend towards philosophical counselling
[14:07] arabella Ella: practical philosophy is often concerned with ethics and politics
[14:07] Stanley Aviatik: yes but all related to the mind and mindsets
[14:07] Gudrun Odriscoll: philosophical counselling sounds interesting
[14:07] Herman Bergson: yes we have that....
[14:08] arabella Ella: not really Stanley, philosophers often have an important say in policy making like for example cloning or stem cell research
[14:08] Vajra Raymaker: In what way do you think our present epistemic situation is unusuually difficult, Herman?
[14:08] Herman Bergson: some people make a living of it
[14:08] Gudrun Odriscoll: like the ethical darlings from Oxford Ethics, some of them lobbying the EU
[14:08] Osrum Sands: The Sociology of Anthony Giddens ran England for the last 10 years
[14:08] arabella Ella: also in ethical issues like euthanasia
[14:08] Herman Bergson: Well Vajra.....there is this balance between rationalism and empiricism..
[14:09] Vajra Raymaker: and...?
[14:09] Herman Bergson: When you look at the history of philosophy we can easily devide it in stages....which philosopher was dominant in a given period...
[14:10] Herman Bergson: in a way this is artificial...
[14:10] Gudrun Odriscoll: history, often rewritten
[14:10] Yrol Xingjian: so, now we are in the bush-period? (sorry °giggles° )
[14:10] Gudrun Odriscoll: LOL
[14:10] Herman Bergson: but at the moment with all information we have it is hard to speak of a dominant philosophy.....
[14:10] Stanley Aviatik: whose bush?
[14:11] Osrum Sands: no not Bush but Levi Strause
[14:11] Herman Bergson: there are groups where some theory is dominant now...
[14:11] Stanley Aviatik: Strauss?
[14:11] arabella Ella: or Zizek
[14:11] Herman Bergson: in medicine or psychology or physics...
[14:11] Vajra Raymaker: Would a univocal theory be advantageous, Herman?
[14:11] Gudrun Odriscoll: Zizek likes talking a lot, and listening to himself. He is exciting, but quite a Narcissist
[14:11] Osrum Sands: American Political theorist behind American thinking on power for past 30 years or so
[14:12] Herman Bergson: No.....that postulates a specific reality...
[14:12] arabella Ella: Zizek makes us question a number of beliefs
[14:12] Yrol Xingjian: hence my thought about "re-evaluation". we do not have a consistent time of one or two, three philosophers, but more a time of many "philosophical anchors" ?
[14:12] Herman Bergson: to return to Comte....knowlege can be seen as a sociological phenomenon
[14:12] Gudrun Odriscoll: There is this woman, Kaufmann? She want to rewrite the story of Enlightenment and place it into some AngloAmerican Victorian Basis (Basement)
[14:12] arabella Ella: all media oriented philosophers today are narcissists like rorty or chomsky or pinker
[14:12] hope63 Shepherd: this all reminds me of the 68 discussions :)
[14:13] Gudrun Odriscoll: Hope you got a point
[14:13] Stanley Aviatik: I prefer 69
[14:13] Stanley Aviatik: lol
[14:13] Dar Innis: lots of philosophers think they rewrite the history of philosophy
[14:13] Osrum Sands: Chomshy Hmmmmm yum
[14:13] Ishtar Ihnen is Offline
[14:13] Gudrun Odriscoll: Yummi, chomsky, lovely chummie
[14:14] Osrum Sands: another fine Sociologist
[14:14] Herman Bergson: He is on the list Osrum...just be patient..:-)
[14:14] Osrum Sands: yep
[14:14] arabella Ella: in the uk there is roger scruton who is often visible in the media too
[14:14] Elizabeth Levi is Offline
[14:15] Gudrun Odriscoll: Thanks for Scruton, who is not a Crouton
[14:15] Herman Bergson: Well......thinking about this discussion...I only feel a need to study more and more..:-)
[14:15] Stanley Aviatik: ha ha
[14:15] Osrum Sands: definately
[14:15] arabella Ella: lol
[14:15] Ze Novikov: thank you herman
[14:15] Dar Innis: yeah, nice discussion
[14:15] Yrol Xingjian: you meant "cretin"? croutons are the lil breadthings in the soup?
[14:15] Gudrun Odriscoll: Yes, Herman, there is not end to it
[14:15] Herman Bergson: I thank you all for this god discussion..:-)
[14:15] Yrol Xingjian: "bread"
[14:15] Herman Bergson: No indeed Gudrun...
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