Comte and Vygotsky: Revealing the unacknowledged commonalities.

Abstract

This article discusses the consonance of some propositions of Comte's positivism and the theory of Vygotsky. Their common features are indicated. They include sociologism (but not vulgar sociologization), holism, historicism, antireductionism, recognition of the active role of the mind, and denial of pure empiricism. They consider psychology as a discipline that combines sociological and biological points of view but at the same time irreducible to either sociology or biology. The article also discusses the views of Comte on the nature of language, which, in his opinion, should be interpreted as a social phenomenon that has a biological foundation. Comte, as well as Vygotsky, separated thinking and language, considering them as different, but closely related intellectual functions connected with different part of the brain. For both Comte and Vygotsky, social lies at the beginning-and not at the end-of the development of mental functions. It is suggested that Comte's influence on Vygotsky was primarily of an indirect nature and was exerted through the French sociological school, philosophy of Feuerbach, Marxism, and through the positivistic spirit of the time. Comte's project of morals can be viewed as a presage of the so-called "affective turn" in psychology and social sciences. The hidden commonalities between Comte and Vygotsky create a new reference point for reassessing Comte's ideas for scientific psychology. Public Significance StatementBased on commonalities between Comte's and Vygotsky's theories, it is shown that Comte's project of psychology is based on the nonreductive strategy of building bridges between biology and sociology. He saw psychology as the science of individuality and not the science of mind.