Back to: Paper 1 Unit 2: Research Aptitude (शोध अभिवृत्ति)
Lesson 1.4
August Comte states that society as a whole, and each particular science, develops through three mentally conceived stages.
- August Comte believed that in this stage, people viewed the world and events in that world as a direct expression of the will of various gods.
- They believed that everything around them was a sign of active gods influencing their lives.
- For example, ancient people actually believed that planets were gods in the sky, looking down on Earth.
- If something bad happened, like a community experienced bad weather or an earthquake, they explain that event as a god being upset and showing his or her anger to the people.
- They failed to discover the natural causes of various phenomena and hence attributed them to a supernatural or divine power.
- Also known as Fictitious stage.
- The theological stage meant that people used supernatural or divine explanations to understand society and the world.
- It is primitive stage when people doing things without any logical consciousness.
- August Comte broke this stage into 3 sub-stages:
- Fetishism (अंधभक्ति) – Fetishism was the primary stage of the theological stage of thinking. Throughout this stage, primitive people believe that inanimate (अचेतन) objects have living spirit in them, also known as animism (जीवात्मा).
- People worship inanimate objects like trees, stones, a piece of wood, volcanic eruptions, etc. Through this practice, people believe that all things root from a supernatural (आलोकिक) source.
- Polytheism (बहुदेववाद) –
- It is the explanation of things through the use of many Gods.
- People believe that all natural forces are controlled by different Gods; a few examples would be God of water, God of rain, God of fire, God of air, God of earth, etc.
- Monotheism (एकेश्वरवाद) –
- Monotheism means believing in one God or God in one; attributing all to a single, supreme God.
- People believe a single theistic entity is responsible for the existence of the universe.
2. Meta Physical Stage
- Metaphysical stage is also known as abstract stage.
- It is the extension of the theological stage.
- This stage refers to explanation by impersonal abstract concepts.
- People often tried to believe that God is an abstract (अमूर्त) being.
- They believe that an abstract power or force guides and determines events in the world.
- ‘Meta’ means beyond and ‘physical’ means material world.
- Supernatural being is replaced by supernatural force.
- This is in form of essences, ideas and forms.
- Rationalism started growing instead of imagination.
- In this stage nature of inquiry was legal and rational in nature.
- In the metaphysical stage of society, people viewed the world and events as natural reflections of human tendencies.
- People in this stage still believed in divine powers or gods, but they believed that these beings are more abstract and less directly involved in what happens on a daily basis.
- Instead, problems in the world are due to defects in humanity.
- They believed that the planets were physical objects in space but that they influenced people’s lives via astrology.
- Societies in the metaphysical stage believe in some supernatural or magical aspects of life,
- but they are also rooted in the concrete parts of life.
3. Positive Stage
- Positive stage rely upon the scientific method, for their justification, hence also known as the scientific stage.
- It refers to scientific explanation based on observation, experiment, and comparison.
- In this stage people attempt to establish cause and effect relationships.
- Positivism is a purely intellectual way of looking at the world; as well, it emphasizes observation and classification of data and facts.
- This is the highest, most evolved behavior according to Comte.
- At this stage of thought, men reject all supposed explanations in terms either of Gods or essences as useless.
- They cease to seek ‘original causes’ or ‘final ends’.
- This stage is governed by industrial administrators and scientific moral guides and dominated by the entrepreneurs, technologists etc.
- Unit of society was confined to the mankind as a whole, vision of mind was broad and there is no narrow feeling.
- Kindness, sympathy etc. to the cause of humanity prevailed.
- This is the ultimate stage in a series of successive transformations.