1. The Beginnings of Modern Sociology
(Much of the following on Saint-
Simon and Comte is from Collins and
Makowsky, 2005)
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2. 2

3. An aristocrat if ever there was
one.
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4. But an “enlightened”
aristocrat as well. He had the
idea that “industrialists” would
rule society and that scientific
thought would, or should,
prevail.
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5. Which takes us to the
importance of, and the need
for, a structured (scientific)
process of social
investigation and the uses of
theory.
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6. Thus: Knowledge is both
subjective and objective.
 What questions we can answer depends
upon what questions we ask.
 Any completely subjective question
undermines its own validity.
 There is though, a realm of objectivity; it
is based on shared observations.
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Paraphrased from Collins

7.  We do not know, however, whether any
particular theory or even any particular
belief about the facts is true.
 Until we begin to notice phenomena and
ask questions about them, we cannot start
to check our theories against the facts or
even to check our assumed facts against
theory.
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8. It took many centuries of
controversy about ideological
and practical issues before
some people realized that their
ordinary ideas might not be
accurate.
This may sound like Peter
Berger’s “Debunking Motif.”
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9. And that is why Henri de Saint-Simon is
so important. In spite of being entirely
self serving through the French
revolution, (he speculated on
abandoned real estate during the
French Revolution and was nearly
beheaded for it) he began to apply
enlightenment principles to social
science. His influence on August Comte
is worth noting.
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10. States Collins of this period, the end of the
19th Century and the beginning of the 19th:
“The old era had been devoted to war and
religion; aristocrats and priests had lived
as parasites on the rest of society. The
new era was to be devoted to the
production of useful goods and services.”
Saint-Simon’s ideas were modernist
certainly. But the times were difficult.
Change was painful as we shall see.
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11. Auguste Comte 1798-1857
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12. Celebrated in France still.
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13. But he looks quite
different from the
earlier portrait of
Saint Simon.
He looks like the
“industrialist that St.
Simon had
imagined!
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14. What do these dates mean to
you? They meant a lot then.
1789, 1793, 1804, 1830,
1848, 1851…
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15. 15
1789 The French Revolution
begins
1793 Bastille is stormed
1804 Napoleon becomes
emperor
1830 Louis Philip becomes king
1848 Revolt against Louis
Philippe
1851 Napoleon III stages coup

16. 16
The Revolution for Freedom against the
tyranny of royalty begins

17. 17
Indeed, things were quite uncertain,
unstable, unpredictable. Violence
abounded. Whose side was the
army on on any particular day?
Imaging trying to go to school and
facing this:

18. 18

19. The Bastille is stormed: The Abu
Ghraib of the 18th Century (Look up
“Bastille Day”)
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20. 1793
The Terror –
the purging
of the old
loyalists.
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21. Guillotine cart, and the
securing of a new government
– no matter how violent. A
typical part of change through
revolution.
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"It is time that equality
bore its scythe above all
heads. It is time to horrify
all the conspirators. So
legislators, place Terror
on the order of the day!
Let us be in revolution,
because everywhere
counter-revolution is
being woven by our
enemies. The blade of the
law should hover over all
the guilty."
~Maximilien de
Robespierre, 1793 (The
Reign of Terror)

22. The guillotine. Mechanization
of death and symbol of
modernity.
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23. 23
Napoleon Bonaparte,
the “Little General.”

24. 24
1804
Napoleon
Bonaparte, The
Emperor.

25. The period of history in which
Comte and Saint-Simon lived
was highly unstable.
Refer to the dates noted for
France’s history and the
conditions of that period.
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26. Comte, the social scientist,
theorized that society
developed in specific stages
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27. Comte stated that there were
three stages of knowledge:
Theological
Metaphysical
Positive
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28. Theological form (animism, spirits or
gods) is the first and passes to the
Metaphysical form (explanation by
abstract philosophical
speculation), and finally becomes
Positive (scientific explanation
based on observation, experiment,
and comparison, and,
controversially, progressive).
Thus is born his theory of
“Positivism.”
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29.  Positivism is characterized by the idea
that science can only deal with observable
entities known directly to experience.
 This means that all social phenomena can
be testable. – Today, this is a contested
argument but one that Comte made
popular in his time and which Durkheim
made popular in his day (the turn of the
twentieth century).
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30. (Think: Are all social phenomena testable
and provable? Opinion surveys, for
example, record opinions held by
individuals without asking why they held
them.)
 Positivism tries to explain all social
experiences in a purely scientific manner.
Is this possible? (Think again: Can we
have a completely unbiased observation
of social phenomena?”
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31. Comte’s notion of sociology included the
concept of interconnectedness of the
social fabric. This interconnectivity is the
precursor to structural functionalism,
one of the most important theoretical
positions in sociology.
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32. Additionally, Comte came up with the idea
that society, through the division of
labor, also became more complex,
differentiated and specialized. This is a
foreshadow of a later sociologist, Emile
Durkheim.
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33. Comte thus
legitimizes the
sciences and
adds one
himself. For it is
to Comte that we
owe the term
“sociology.” He
called sociology
the “queen of the
sciences.”
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34. For Comte, society is not just a
collection of individuals and their
psychological makeup—but rather
society itself is something to be studied
as itself.
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35. This is to say that that science it divided into
two parts. The first one is the principle that
isolated facts cannot be understood by
themselves, but must be seen in their larger
context.
The whole must be grasped if one were to
understand the functions of the parts.
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36. Society has its various
parts (the family, the
church, the state) just
as the body has its
various organs (the
liver, the heart, the
brain and so on),
each serving some
function of the whole.
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Others will make this same
“organic” assertion.

37. The second of his principles is that
progress occurs simultaneously in all
spheres—intellectual, physical, moral
and political.
Thus, one kind of change could be taken
as an index for all the others.
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38. Thus, his three stages of knowledge,
which are strictly intellectual, can be
viewed as three stages of history as
such:
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39. Intellectual Military Basic Social Unit Basic Moral
Sentiment
Theological Military Family Attachment
Metaphysical Legalistic State Veneration
Positive Industrial Humanity Benevolence
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