The Correspondence of John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte

Haac, Oscar A.

doi:10.4324/9781351294287

Cited by 6 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…None of these references to Mill can be dated to before the appearance of the Introduction in 1865. But as we will see below, the Introduction itself strongly (Haac 1995). Canguilhem (1967, 30-31) suggested that Bernard often contrasted his own methodological views with Comte's, even though, like Mill, Comte was not mentioned by name.…”

Section: Claude Bernard On the Epistemology Of Experimental Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

Unwarranted assumptions: Claude Bernard and the growth of the vera causa standard

Scholl

2020

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

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The physiologist Claude Bernard was an important nineteenthcentury methodologist of the life sciences. Here I place his thought in the context of the history of the vera causa standard, arguably the dominant epistemology of science in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Its proponents held that in order for a cause to be legitimately invoked in a scientific explanation, it must be shown by direct evidence to exist and to be competent to produce the effects ascribed to it. Historians of scientific method have argued that in the course of the nineteenth century the vera causa standard was superseded by a more powerful consequentialist epistemology, which also admitted indirect evidence for the existence and competence of causes. The prime example of this is the luminiferous ether, which was widely accepted, in the absence of direct evidence, because it entailed verified observational consequences and, in particular, successful novel predictions. According to the received view, the vera causa standard's demand for direct evidence of existence and competence came to be seen as an impracticable and needless restriction on the scope of legitimate inquiry into the fine structure of nature. The Mill-Whewell debate has been taken to exemplify this shift in scientific epistemology, with Whewell's consequentialism prevailing over Mill's defense of the older standard. However, Bernard's reflections on biological practice challenge the received view. His methodology marked a significant extension of the vera causa standard that made it both powerful and practicable. In particular, Bernard emphasized the importance of detection procedures in establishing the existence of unobservable entities. Moreover, his sophisticated notion of controlled experimentation permitted inferences about competence even in complex biological systems. In the life sciences, the vera causa standard began to flourish precisely around the time of its alleged abandonment.

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Section: Claude Bernard On the Epistemology Of Experimental Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

Unwarranted assumptions: Claude Bernard and the growth of the vera causa standard

Scholl

2020

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

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“…So too with Comte, whose endorsement of phrenology was tempered by the same concerns that caused its eventual rejection by the scientific community. As far as he was concerned, it provided ‘the first basis of a truly rational theory of human nature’ (in Haac, 1995 [1842]: 58) by enabling the scientific study of the intellect and the emotions. Comte saw phrenology as a legitimate scientific enterprise because its subject was ‘not any imaginary fluids, ether or the like, but tangible organs, whose hypothetical attributes admit of positive verification’ (Comte, 1896b: 128); it was thus not metaphysical, a deeply pejorative term for Comte.…”

Section: Cerebral Physiologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From this, Comte declared that sociology alone could make sense of human cognition:[I]ntellectual and moral studies cannot appropriately base themselves purely on biology, since individual man represents an ambiguous and even false starting point here. It is only through sociology that this endeavor can be guided, for our true evolution remains unintelligible without paying constant and preponderant attention to the social conditions in which the different aspects are, incidentally, fully interdependent.(in Haac, 1995 [1842]: 81)…”

Section: Social Epistemologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 6. It is not clear what makes Comte’s conjectural and ‘ a priori ’ (1875a: 590) method any less arbitrary than Gall’s. For as he admits, ‘without having done special research in determining this, I do not believe, just looking at it, that one can admit less than ten distinct forces (intellectual or emotional) without falling into useless subtleties of metaphysical distinction, nor more than fifteen without infringing on the cohesive unity of human nature’ (in Haac, 1995 [1842]: 80). …”

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confidence: 99%

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The neurosociology of Auguste Comte

McVeigh

2020

Social Science Information

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This article explores the role of phrenology in the work of Auguste Comte. I begin by reviewing the historical and contemporary significance of this doctrine to show the direct lineage that exists between phrenology and what we now call cognitive neuroscience. I then demonstrate the impact of phrenology on Comte’s sociological theory and make the claim that his paradigm exemplifies what TenHouten called ‘neurosociology.’ Following this, I show how Comte’s social epistemology rejected biological reductionism and considered neurophysiology a subfield of sociology. This results in a somewhat startling assertion: Comte saw sociology as a cognitive science. After outlining Comte’s original vision for sociology as a discipline, I place Comte’s system in critical contact with 21st century neuroscience and suggest fruitful ways to move the neurosociology paradigm forward. In this I demonstrate that Comte’s vision for sociology is worth pursuing today, even while the specifics of his doctrine are not.

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“…In Gordon Allport's (1954/1968) classic review of the field's historical background, he credits August Comte, the founder of positive philosophy, with the discovery of both sociology and social psychology. And it is well known that Comte and Mill were close colleagues, at least for a time (Hacc, 1995/2017). By pointing in the direction of positive philosophy, therefore, the definition simply foregrounds the field's intellectual inheritance and some of the origins of its wish to model itself on the natural sciences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social psychology as a stable interpretative framework irrefutably committed to the scientific study of persons and society

Barnes

2022

J Theory Soc Behav

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Despite repeated opportunities to reconsider their natural science ambitions, social psychologists have not done so, and there are no obvious signs of this changing. Why?This paper pursues an answer to this question by defining the field after the fashion of Michael Polanyi's thought.According to Polanyi, interpretative frameworks develop from our primitive bodily encounters with the world and then are shaped by language into the vast conceptual systems of our culture. Concerning frameworks erected on our most fundamental beliefs (e.g., science), he says that we "live in [them] as in the garment of our own skin." Frameworks such as this are not objects of critical evaluation but of commitment, and social psychology, as an outgrowth of positive philosophy, is an interpretative framework in this sense. Professionals' recent responses to the field's political makeup and replication failures demonstrate this. They aim primarily at preserving a natural science understanding of social psychology and point to the influence of belief-stabilizing mechanisms Polanyi finds operative in folk religious practices. These mechanisms appear at work also in psychology as a whole. They are implied, for instance, in the field's resistance to Sigmund Koch's authoritative judgement against its scientific self-conception in the latter half of the 20 th century. Noting this reveals the broader implications of this paper's definition of social psychology, but it also urges questions about truth and relativity that cannot be ignored. These questions are addressed briefly in

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The Correspondence of John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte

Cited by 6 publications

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Unwarranted assumptions: Claude Bernard and the growth of the vera causa standard

Unwarranted assumptions: Claude Bernard and the growth of the vera causa standard

The neurosociology of Auguste Comte

Social psychology as a stable interpretative framework irrefutably committed to the scientific study of persons and society

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