Law of three stages

The law of three stages (or law of mental development ) of the philosopher Auguste Comte says that mankind three stages of thought / knowledge goes through until it reaches the optimum state. These are the theological, the metaphysical and the positive stage. Going through is comparable with the maturation of a human. The theological stage is identified in Comte's theory with the childhood of mankind, the metaphysical with puberty and the positive with the " male state of mind ". The theory of the three stages Law has a strong teleological character, ie it assumes that the historical development of mankind to a specific, directed from the outset fixed objective.

The three stages

The theological or fictitious stage

The theological stage is only temporary, according to Comte, and has a preparatory function with respect to the following stages. The curiosity of the people drives him to ask questions about its environment. He searches for the cause and manner of production of the phenomena that impress him. So after absolute knowledge. These needs are to match that produced himself, satisfied by the initial inclination of the people, all phenomena. So they seem familiar. The theological stage is divided into three main forms: in fetishism, polytheism and monotheism.

Fetishism

The most pronounced of these three main forms of fetishism. Here all external bodies is attributed to a life similar to ours. However, these bodies have a powerful effect. The worship of the heavenly bodies is characteristic of this phase, it hardly differs from the mental state of the animals.

Polytheism

While up to this point instinct and imagination in the human theories were dominant, now the imagination comes to the fore. The material objects is extracted and transferred fictional, mostly invisible beings life. Your active intervention is now cause of all the phenomena occurring. Can you clarify that the example of the ancient cultures. There developed originally from locally worshiped deities for each area responsible gods. Worship was, for example, not only the sea, but also a god of the sea, the Greek Poseidon and the Roman Neptune.

Monotheism

In this phase, the decay of the initial philosophy begins. The idea that all natural phenomena are bound by immutable laws, the imagination is replacing more and more.

The metaphysical or abstract stage

The second stage is an introduction to the third and final stage. Comte called the metaphysical stage of a chronic disease that is both necessary and inevitable but.

Also in this stage, the basic questions remain the same: man is still looking for the absolute knowledge, only the attempted solution is different. It will no longer be fictitious, but abstract entities, such as nature, invoked to explain. The imagination loses importance and the real observation, the mind, is gaining ground and is prepared for the positive stage. Comte describes the metaphysical stage as inconsistent, as it will maintain the principles of theological system. Metaphysics is now faced with the choice to restore the theological stage or to cancel the rule of theology.

The positive or scientific stage

The gradual freed intelligence is now of the necessary precursors to the positive stage, which is the end point, and thus the optimum condition. The basis of this stage, that it is impossible to attain absolute knowledge. It is the field of real observations, which may be the only possible basis of the findings developed ( positivism ). Comte cites the general rule that an assertion can be meaningful only if it relates to an already unprecedented fact and thus is understandable.

The imagination loses importance and assigns the observation under. Thus, according to Comte, a completely normal state of mind is achieved. The basic difference of this stage of the first two is that here the simple exploration of laws is paramount. But it must be considered that only a part of a phenomenon may be considered. The loss of a sense would mean that humanity would remain concealed a number of phenomena. The gain of one mind would yield new insights. So scholarly exploited is only part of a phenomenon that we can perceive with our senses.

The laws may be not only an accumulation of facts. They are not composed of simple facts, but they are intended primarily the rational foresight. Comte calls this " look to foresee ." It should therefore be explored, which is to see due to the immutability of the laws of nature can, what will be.

Summary

Comte shows in his law of three stages, that the spirit of man must evolve only by going through these stages until he can finally use his vacated intelligence altogether. In the positive stage of man is able to look critically phenomena and to make predictions based on the knowledge obtained. On the progress of time, a positive If the individual sciences is to be noted. In the positive stage, all the sciences are ultimately positive, sociology represents the culmination of all the sciences. It combines all the features of other individual science in itself.