Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Here are some Auguste Comte Quotes on mathematics and science.
Comte developed positive philosophy in an attempt to remedy the social disorder caused by the French Revolution, which he believed indicated imminent transition to a new form of society. He sought to establish a new social doctrine based on science, which he labelled ‘positivism’. He had a major impact on 19th-century thought, influencing the work of social thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and George Eliot. His concept of Sociologie and social evolutionism set the tone for early social theorists and anthropologists such as Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer, evolving into modern academic sociology presented by Émile Durkheim as practical and objective social research. Hence auguste comte and positivism became famous.
“Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced.”
“All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon’s time, that there can be no real knowledge but which is based on observed facts.”
“Each department of knowledge passes through three stages. The theoretic stage; the theological stage and the metaphysical or abstract stage.”
“Everything is relative; and only that is absolute.”
“The word right should be excluded from political language, as the word cause from the language of philosophy.”
“Ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos.”
“Every science consists in the coordination of facts; if the different observations were entirely isolated, there would be no science.”
“Humanity is always made up of more dead than living.”
“Positivism is a theory of knowledge according to which the only kind of sound knowledge available to human kind is that if science grounded in observation.”
“Religion is an illusion of childhood, outgrown under proper education.”
“Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy?”
“Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry…. if mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry — an aberration which is happily almost impossible — it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science.”
“Know yourself to improve yourself.”
“If we do not allow free thinking in chemistry or biology, why should we allow it in morals or politics?”
“The sacred formula of positivism: love as a principle, the order as a foundation, and progress as a goal.”
“Monotheism occupies so large a space in the view of modern minds, that it is scarcely possible to form a just estimate of the preceding phases of the theological philosophy.”
“To understand a science it is necessary to know its history.”
“To reorganize society without God or King, by the systematic culture of Humanity.”
“The universe displays no proof of an all-directing mind.”
Mathematics quotes by auguste comte
“In mathematics we find the primitive source of rationality; and to mathematics must the biologists resort for means to carry out their researches.”
“The law is this: that each of our leading conceptions-each branch of our knowledge-passes successively through three different theoretical conditions: the Theological, or fictitious: the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or positive.”
“Mathematical Analysis is… the true rational basis of the whole system of our positive knowledge.”
“In the final, the positive, state, the mind has given over the vain search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws-that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general facts.”
“The mathematical thermology created by Fourier may tempt us to hope that, as he has estimated the temperature of the space in which we move, me may in time ascertain the mean temperature of the heavenly bodies: but I regard this order of facts as for ever excluded from our recognition. We can never learn their internal constitution, nor, in regard to some of them, how heat is absorbed by their atmosphere. We may therefore define Astronomy as the science by which we discover the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented by the heavenly bodies.”
“Language forms a kind of wealth, which all can make use of at once without causing any diminution of the store, and which thus admits a complete community of enjoyment; for all, freely participating in the general treasure, unconsciously aid in its preservation.”
“But now, I, August Comte, have discovered the truth. Therefore, there is no longer any need for freedom of thought or freedom of the press. I want to rule and to organize the whole country.”
“Induction for deduction, with a view to construction.”
“The only real life is the collective life of the race; individual life has no existence except as an abstraction.”
“History has now been for the first time systematically considered, and has been found, like other phenomena, subject to invariable laws.”
“The dead govern the living.”
“Woman is the most moral element in all humanity.”