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Reconciling Order And Progress: Auguste Comte, Gustave Le Bon, Emile Durkheim, And The Development Of Positivism In France, 1820-1914, Khali Navarro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the philosophy of positivism in nineteenth century France. Based on an empirical vision of society, positivism advocated values of rationality, progress, and secularization. In that way, it stood as one of the defining systems of thought of the modern era. I discuss, however, an undercurrent of anxiety about those same values. Positivism's founder, Auguste Comte, argued that all sciences would become unified and organized under universal principles and empirical standards. He viewed the human mind as becoming more rationalized throughout history. In his later career, however, he argued that rationalism was a destructive force and that a …