SaintSimon 17601825

1
Saint-Simon (1760-1825)

• Life
• French social scientist
• Born of a poor aristocratic family
• Entered military service at 17
• Served as a captain of artillery at Yorktown in
  1781)
• After the French Revolution, he maintained
  successful political career
• Also, economically successful
• Soon after Napoleons coup, he lost his fortune.
• He turned to the study of science, developed his
  ideas on ideal society.
• He wrote up his ideas and sent them in petitions.

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Saint-Simon (1760-1825)

• Approaches to social structure and society
• (1) Science and technology should solve most of
  humanitys problems.
• (2) Industrialism is a new era in history.
• (3) He emphasized the production of public goods
  (socialist ideas)
• (4) The rise of a perfect meritocracy
• (5)As a result, NO CONFLICT of CLASSES. THE
  SYSTEM IS ELITIST.
• (6) The government exists purely as a technical
  device to coordinate society.

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Saint-Simon (1760-1825)

• Summary
• Reaction against the killing of the French
  Revolution and the militarism of Napoleon.
• The industrialization of the world
• Science and technology would solve most of
  humanitys problems.
• Businessmen and other industrial leaders would
  control society.
• The spiritual direction of society should be in
  the hands of scientists and engineers.
• Industrial state directed by modern science, and
  organized for productive labor by the most
  capable men.
• The aim of society is to produce things useful to
  life.

4
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Life
• In 1817, Comte started working for Sanit-Simon as
  his private secretary.
• They worked together for 7 years before they
  split up in 1824 after a series of disputes.
• After the split, he couldnt get a job.
• He barely made his living out of grading entrance
  exams in math, giving public lectures, and
  writing some stuff.
• Like Saint-Simon, he sent out petitions to all
  over the Europe to get supported for his work.
• His frustration led him to mental instability and
  illness and he twice attempted suicide.
• Eventually, Comte began to gather followers, and
  his ideas gradually become known.

5
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
Approaches to social structure and society (1)
The law of three stages of knowledge
Theological form ---gt Metaphysical
form---gt positive form The hierarchy of
sciences
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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Approaches to social structure and society
• (2) Society is not just the behavior of
  individuals, but something that accumulates
  across many generations.
• The task of new science of sociology is to
  explain the laws that govern this entity.
• Social statics the study of social order
• Social dynamics the study of social progress or
  change

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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Approaches to social structure and society
• (3) Isolated facts cannot be understood by
  themselves, but must be studied in their larger
  context.
• Society is analogous to a biological organism
• Division of labor among social institutions

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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
Approaches to social structure and society (4)
Harmonious society is based on consensus, a
feeling of belonging together as a moral unit
(Social Statics). (5) Social change everywhere
goes through the same sequence. All the various
elements of a society change together (Social
Dynamics).
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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Contributions
• His leading insights were well used by Spencer,
  Durkheim, and many other later sociologists.
• For example,
• The Recognition that society should be explained
  on its own level rather than by reduction to
  psychological level
• The division of labor among social institutions
• Moral sentiments in holding society together

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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Problems
• Society is full of conflict among their units and
  parts as well as harmony.
• The elements of society do not change all
  together. The outcomes are neither so inevitable
  nor as benevolent as Comte believed.
• The evolution of societies is not linear (e.g.,
  the differences among developed countries and
  developing countries).