Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings / Edition 1

by Gertrud Lenzer

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765804129
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/30/1997
Series:	Media Studies Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	640
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Gertrud Lenzer is professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her writings include Auguste Comte and Positivism and Sociology and Religion.

Gertrud Lenzer is professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her writings include Auguste Comte and Positivism and Sociology and Religion.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Transaction Edition, Acknowledgments, Foreword, Introduction: Auguste Comte and Modern Positivism, PART I. EARLY WRITINGS (1819-1828), PART II. THE FIRST SYSTEM, PART III. THE SECOND SYSTEM, PART IV. THE WORSHIP, Conclusion of the Whole Work of the System of Positive Polity, Postscript—Mind-forged Manacles: Auguste Comte and the Future, Selected Bibliography, More Recent Bibliographical Sources, Index

Editorial Reviews

Lenzer insightfully discusses Comte’s efforts to reorganize society, his philosophy of science, and his relationship with J. S. Mill.” —Donald N. Levine, Contemporary Sociology “Gertrud Lenzer has edited what will surely become the standard Comte reader for the English-speaking world. . . . Comte could scarcely have had a more assertive champion than Gertrud Lenzer.” —Robert Fox, Isis "Gertrud Lenzer is to be congratulated for combining the standard with the less well known works of Comte, thereby giving a full and intellectually faithful representation of his thought. . . . Professor Lenzer's volume will go far hi establishing Comte's relevance for contemporary social science." —Neil J. Smelser, University of California, Berkeley "Dr. Lenzer's book admirably brings to contemporary attention the work of an enormously influential but little-read philosopher, whose writings on science and society represent fundamental ideas, tendencies, and perils characterizing the modern situation." —Israel Scheffler, Harvard University "At a time of quickened interest in all aspects of the relation between organism and environment, biologists especially will welcome Professor Lenzer's fine selections from the writings of this neglected positivist." —Donald Kennedy, president emeritus, Stanford University

From the Publisher

Contains representative selections of writings from his early, middle, and later life which were gathered to demonstrate the continuity underlying apparently disconnected works. Included are translations of parts of the Cours de Philosophie Positive and the Systeme de Politique Positive. Also included is an introductory essay by the editor explaining the context of Comte's writing within the larger world of positivism. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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