Identificatory principles, originally from Aristotle's philosophy, fonned Comte's connection to the social science.93 In his own version of praxis, Comte was attempting to join the theoretical strength of philosophy (the search for truth) to the practical strengths of everyday life (the employment of certainty in social action).94 As can be seen in the following systematic development of three arguments, he attempted to identify the nature of existence through the marriage of two conceptions: singularity or 'oneness', and truth (the nature of which is explained later). The arguments were that if a truth could be shown to be 'at one' with knowledge, and knowledge to be 'at one' with life, then truth itself must be 'at one' with life,9s and thereby fonned the rule with which to guide life. While there was a clear line of argument for Identifying the philosophical principles of truth with science, his methods for implementing it contradicted the ways in which knowledge was fonned in life itself. His truncated investigatory methods pared the complex whole of social life to the barest minimum before analysis (as well as failed to examine whether the problem even existed in the sphere in which it was studied). Indeed, within Comte's reductionist practices, within the sequential abridgement of both method and social life, the possibility of an investigation of 'ways of knowing' would be shown to have been eclipsed. Reflection on each of these three arguments of Identification begins with the claim that truth be shown to be 'at one' with knowledge.
In the first argument, the Aristotlean Identity principles demonstrated that for 'knowledge to be true', a thing must be only what it is; it could not be what it was not, and it must be distinct from
92 Withoul a thesis of identity, dialectics is not whole'. Adorno, 1966:406
93 Comte believed the Principles of the of 'an aact and complete representation of the relations existing' (Comte, in Brown. 1977: 14) The ontological of tlie
Aristotlean First was the existence of a entitr independent of cause
was that which itself was withoul cause.' (Beesley. 'It was the essence the principles. rust causes and essential attributes of being as such; the science of principles. 94 Comte. 1903:73 When the relation between thinking and doing shall be properly idle and
useless research will be condemned and discolU'aged'. (Comte, 1903:xxlii, para.
9S The intentions of these arguments were to form an image of Bacon's 'una scientia universalis'.(c.f. Horlcheimer
and Adorno, 1972:7) Comte had found the Aristotlean Principles of Identity employed withm Francis Bacon's 'philosophie prima' .
�£orations ....
Pt. [
cliJany other thing.96 While 'thinking much of certainty and precision'97 of methods and results. Comte did not want scientists to engage in metaphysical reasoning as part of those methods. Instead these philosophical principles of truth provided the foundation for scientific notions of proof 1bat is, he thought that in the place of judgement by individual argument as method, a collectively-agreed recipe would be applied.98 Though later criticised as 'tautology',99 'truth could be shown to be 'at one' with knowledge'. by systematically substituting a mathematical equation for the figure itself.lOO By transforming questions of actuality into questions of number, Comte believed that the
more people who shared the phenomena under study. the truer it would prove to be and those ideas which 'could not fit', were not obvious. or could not later be calculated, were to remain as infonnal knowledge - denied a formal Identity.tOI In the practise of my own life, for example, if what mother did (refuse to discuss bereavement) was equivalent to what everyone else did (a taboo), then she was correct or 'right' (and I was wrong). That Comte required such a 'truth' to be 'proven' by mathematics, was to be found in his thesis of 'the unity of all sciences'.ICYl where it was believed 96 The Aristotlean Laws of consist of (1) the law of identity (A=A); (2) the law of contradiction (not A =
not A) and (3) the law of excluded middle (A�B). 97 Beesley. I903:I37n6
98 His was adapted from Francis Bacon, whose basic maxim was: The course 1 propose for the discovery
sciences is such as leaves but liule to the acuteness and strength of wits. but ... far to level men's
and leaves but little to individlUll excellence. because it everything surest rules .. .' in Van den Daele, 1977:34, and in tum in Harding. In separated science pure reason, and further contributed to Comte's behefs in the acturial (Marvin, 1965:51 -54)
on the one hand. the unity of all fonns of scientific Comte developed on the other, the thesis 'scala intellectus' (Comte, 1 85 1:34; 1854:55; Roderick, in order to replace individual judgement (reason) with the collectively-agreed clearheadedness of mathematical formulae First of all, mathematics not 'the smallest exercise of human reason', (Comte, & 158) reducing the use of to famous tabula rasa of Bacon and Descartes', (Comte, 1903:77; 1954:165) but also gave Comte the grounds to claim that. 'once theological dogl1lll and have
way to sober scientific research, ... men {will have} acquired real knowledge'.
Bacon and Descartes, he believed. had extolled 'thefwidamental and direct ... between the true and universal sense' (Comte, 1903:135). Comte also Cervantes and the idea of a directness of mind and he named this action 'rational prevision'. In
his hierarchical system of the intellect, was rated mythology but as less
than the 'rational of positivism. asked 'Each of us, In contemplating
his own history. he not remember that he has been successively, with to his most
ideas, theolog,an in his infancy, met�hysician in his and natural in his As a of his beliefs, in the Positivist Law VII states,"Every understanding passes
three stages - fictitious, abstract and and Law VIII continues that these s�es are,
to human i.e., defense and industry" (Comte,1954:157). This thesis was subsequently rejected Habermas, 239) and criticised as a 'one dimensional philosophy' (Marcuse, 1 964).
99 The triWN'h mathematics ...
is
tautology ... by the limitation of what it itself has already prepared andformed. 1982: 1 1 )
100 Comte, Vol.l . 390. This form of equitability reflected Descartes claim of a relation between the
abstract the and was reflected in Comte's Unity of Science thesis. The additive and abstract qualities of mathematics were for Comte 'of all speculations, the most general. the most the most abstract and the most independent' (Comte, 1903: 1580 Mathematics thus formed the basis Comte's Law
Invariable Natural Relations: ' the fundamenlill doctrine within the positive logic .. .' (Comte, Polity, Mathematics, as the earliest of the sciences, was 'the one cradle of rational positivity ... (where) common sense passes into abstract science'. (1903:158) However act has since been criticised because science reduced society to 'the smallest number of axioms' in order to know it (Horkheimer, 1972: 138)
101 the number of the hi�her the possibility of 'the normal'. (Comte, Polity, VoU, The 'most' would form 'normal for, 'if we afar. we can no more marvellous a spectacle than the regular and conslilnl convergence of an innwnerable of hwnan
beings. This is the scientific picture of the pheNJmenon: ani:l no disturbances can prevent its
being, under all circumstances. essentially true.' (Comte, However, 'what does not cof}/orm to the rules of computation and is suspect.' (Horlcheimer and Adorno, The reduction of social life in to the rules positwe sc�nce. led to accusations 'scienticism'. For Habermas, is the conviction tluit we can no longer understand science as one form of possible
knowledge but rather must identify knowledge with science.' (Habermas, 1981 :4, 67)
102 Comte's philosophy' was founded on the fundamental belief of the hierarchical unity of all scientific
extending from the apparent of mathematics to the complexity of The logic of die lowest science in the would inform tlie ideologic the of the sciences (sociology).(Comte, 1903:41 mathematics was studied early 1903:164) ani:! as a separate science lor tlJi ultunate purpose 0 equipping ourselves for (Comle, 1903:41) then • . . . each individlUll can pass ... from the hilinhlest mathematical ideas to the theories