Sociology

Auguste Comte: Major contributions

Auguste Comte was a great social thinker of his time. He was one of the early thinkers who wanted and stressed that social philosophy should be studied on scientific lines and not based on mere imaginations and guesses. His contribution to social thought was a universe.

His Contribution to Philosophy

Auguste Comte was undoubtedly a great thinker. His stress on women’s role, morality, and public opinion in the reconstruction of society still hold as good as these were when he put forth his ideas. His classification of knowledge, science, and social progress is highly valued today. His organic concept of society, though not acceptable to many, his organic concept of society is yet an essential contribution to social and political philosophy. Then his another contribution is that he brought sociology and political science closer to each other. In his philosophy, he has given great importance to family, which cannot be underestimated.

Of course, Comte co-ordinated the ideas of many social and political thinkers who preceded him. Still, it can't be denied that his contribution lies in giving these ideas a new shape and form acceptable to society.

Then his another contribution is that he laid a type of social thought based on which society can be established. He stressed that there should not be only knowledge of all sciences but study them orderly. This is another contribution to social thought.

Then credit goes to him for stressing that no social problem could be studied without the help of various sciences. He stressed that all social events should be systematically studied. He believed that sociology was science of social order and should be accepted as such. With the help of the proper sociology study, social morality could be promoted.

Then his contribution is his stress that material progress could not bring social progress and also could not solve social problems. He also said that every social problem should be studied with the help of observation, experimentation, classification, and comparison if dependable results were to be expected. It could only then be possible to properly study the subject.

Again Comte gave the idea that the science that follows is dependent on the science that proceeds and that no science could be effectively studied without sufficiently dependable knowledge.

Again, credit goes to Comte for suggesting that the development process passes through three stages, theological, metaphysical, and positive, and these stages can only be modified. Similarly, the first tire gave the idea that there were three determinants of progress, intellectual, material, and moral. Comte has also been credited for giving at some length the organic concept of society on the one hand and that family was the unit of society on the other.

Comte’s contribution is that he stressed that the state was an essential social institution that governed various social activities. He believed that a society without a government was no less impossible than a government without a society. Since functions of society were growing, therefore, state control was inevitable.

In this way, it will have to be accepted that Comte’s contribution to social thought was immense. He was a pioneer of new ideas in many ways and wanted all social problems to be systematically studied if tangible results were to be achieved.