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TEORI SOSIOLOGI

Zuryawan Isvandiar Zoebir — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:01:38 +0000

Zuryawan Isvandiar Zoebir, Mahasiswa Magister Pembangunan Sosial Universitas Indonesia, Angkatan III, NPM. 8399040304

Tulisan ini merupakan Catatan Kuliah Teori Sosial Modern yang diberikan oleh Dr. Imam B. Prasodjo

Sosiologi muncul setelah terjadi ancaman terhadap dunia yang dianggap nyata; sosiologi muncul setelah terjadi perubahan mendasar dan berjangka panjang di Eropa seperti industrialisasi, urbanisasi, rasionalisasi. Untuk menjelaskan proses-proses tersebut para ahli sosiologi berteori.

Jonathan H. Turner merumuskan teori sebagai … a mental activity … a process of developing ideas that can allow the scientists to explain (menjelaskan mengapa) why events should occur (melalui kegiatan berteori, seorang ilmuwan dapat menjelaskan mengapa peristiwa-peristiwa tertentu terjadi).

Perumusan lain menurut William Kornblum … a set of interrelated concepts that seeks to explain (menjelaskan sebab-sebab) the causes of an observable phenomenon … (yang menekankan penjelasan sebab terjadinya suatu gejala yang diamati).

Apa yang dipelajari Sosiologi ?

Sebagaimana halnya dengan ilmu-ilmu lain, maka sosiologi pun mempunyai teorinya sendiri; mempunyai konsep, hipotesa, proposisi dan variabelnya sendiri. Suatu ciri yang dipunyai sosiologi sebagai suatu bidang ilmu ialah bahwa sosiologi mempunyai banyak teori dan dalam hal ini George Ritzer (1980) menyebutkan sosiologi mempunyai banyak paradigma (a multiple paradigm science) karena memiliki 3 (tiga) paradigma :

1. Paradigma fakta sosial;

2. Paradigma definisi sosial;

3. Paradigma perilaku sosial.

Paradigma fakta sosial, hakekat pokok permasalahannya dipecahkan hampir sama dengan pendekatan yang dilakukan oleh ilmu-ilmu alam yaitu sebagai obyek, teori yang dipergunakan adalah teori fungsionalisme struktural, metoda penelitian kuisioner dan karya ilmiah yang relevan dengan pendekatan fakta sosial adalah Penelitian Bunuh Diri oleh Emile Durkheim.

Emile Durkheim dalam bukunya The Rules of Sociological Method (1965) mengemukakan bahwa fakta sosial dapat dijelaskan dengan mempelajari fungsinya, menurutnya mencari fungsi suatu fakta sosial berarti “… determine whether there is a correspondence between the fact under consideration and the general needs of the social organism …” Contoh yang diberikan Durkheim adalah hukuman yang berfungsi untuk tetap memelihara intensitas sentimen kolektif yang ditimbulkan oleh kejahatan. Tanpa suatu hukuman maka sentimen kolektif akan segera lenyap.

Tokoh fungsionalisme klasik : Emile Durkheim, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, A.R. Radcliffe Brown.

Ralf Dahrendorf mengemukakan gambarannya mengenai pokok-pokok teori fungsionalisme, sebagai berikut :

1. Setiap masyarakat merupakan suatu struktur unsur yang relatif gigih dan stabil;

2. Mempunyai struktur unsur yang terintegrasi dengan baik;

3. Setiap unsur dalam masyarakat mempunyai fungsi, memberikan sumbangan pada terpeliharanya masyarakat sebagai suatu sistem;

4. Setiap struktur sosial yang berfungsi didasarkan pada konsensus mengenai nilai di kalangan para anggotanya.

Paradigma definisi sosial, hakekat pokok permasalahannya dipecahkan sebagai obyek, teori yang dipergunakan adalah teori interaksionisme simbolik, metoda penelitian pengamatan dan karya ilmiah yang relevan dengan definisi sosial adalah tindakan sosial dari Max Weber.

Tokoh interaksionis simbolis klasik :

Georg Simmel berpendapat bahwa muncul dan berkembangnya kepribadian seseorang tergantung pada jaringan hubungan sosial (web of group affiliation).

Max weber memperkenalkan interaksionisme dengan menyatakan bahwa sosiologi ialah ilmu yang berusaha memahami tindakan sosial dan mendefinisikan serta membahas konsep-konsep dasar yang menyangkut interaksi seperti tindakan-tindakan sosial dan tindakan non-sosial serta hubungan sosial. Sumbangan penting lain bagi teori sosiologi terletak pada konsep pemahaman (verstehen) dan konsep makna subyektif individu. Pemahaman terhadap tindakan sosial dilakukan dengan meneliti makna subyektif yang diberikan individu terhadap tindakannya, karena manusia bertindak atas dasar makna yang diberikannya pada tindakan tersebut.

Para penganut teori interaksionisme simbolik menyepakati beberapa hal :

1. Terdapat kesepakatan bahwa manusia merupakan mahluk yang mampu menciptakan dan menggunakan simbol;

2. Bahwa manusia memakai simbol untuk saling berkomunikasi;

3. Manusia berkomunikasi melalui pengambilan peran (role taking);

4. Masyarakat tercipta, bertahan dan berubah berdasarkan kemampuan manusia untuk berpikir, untuk mendefinisikan, untuk melakukan renungan dan untuk melakukan evaluasi.

Salemba, 2 Maret 2000

Emergent Intellectuals and Their News From Nowhere

mraley — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:26:34 +0000

Intellectualism has long said, to coin a phrase, "Everything must change." Will emergent intellectuals be any different from the utopians of the past? Not so far. Their knowledge seems enslaved to ideology:

Evil is built into our social structures. Racism is systemic. Economic inequality is institutional. War is the result of the military industrial complex. Poverty in the developing world is the legacy of imperialism, imposed first by Western colonial powers and then by cold war superpowers. So, if we're serious about addressing all these problems, the world has to be reorganized.

Fortunately, this is now possible.

A new generation has outgrown the confines of the Enlightenment and is emerging into postmodernity. We no longer think in outmoded ways. We're no longer shackled by the prejudices of ye olde puritanism, or the bigotry of Western thought, or the obsession with proving others wrong. We know that we can change everything because we have what previous generations lacked: dialogue about theoretical models.

And all God's people said, "Yes we can!"

Utopianism of this kind has a pretty well-documented history. Michael Burleigh's recent book about the decline of Christendom, Earthly Powers (HarperCollins, 2005), narrates how political schemes for restructuring society gained religious authority. Among the vast collection of intellectuals Burleigh sketches is Auguste Comte (pp 229-230):

One of the fathers of modern social "science", who in 1839 coined the term "sociology", Comte sought to establish the philosophical basis for the sciences and for the scientific ordering and reform of society, a formula calculated to appeal to the right as well as the left. . . . [Comte's] Positivism was supposed to be a third way between the outmoded theologically grounded world of the ancien regime and an abstract, critical rationalism that had become anarchic and incapable of creating anything.

Burleigh continues:

The essence of his Religion of Humanity was to redirect mankind's spiritual energies away from the transcendental and towards the creation of a happier and more moral life here on earth through the worship of the best in man himself.

The idea that science must direct cultural change led to an array of horrors.

Burleigh narrates the course from Saint-Simon and Comte, among others, to the totalitarian regimes of the early 20th century. Turning to older scholars, Russell Kirk, in The Conservative Mind, showed the many responses of Anglo-American thinkers to the destruction of culture by utilitarian reformers. In The Road To Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek argued that centrally planned economies lead to tyranny. Jane Jacobs documented the dehumanizing impact of urban renewal dogma in The Death and Life of Great of American Cities. Paul Johnson scandalized the chattering classes with his book Intellectuals, which did the extreme disfavor of comparing the ideals of famous thinkers with their actual behavior.

And the emergents?

Infatuation with causes on the left is deepening, especially among younger evangelicals. It is now God's work to protest the war in Iraq, to bring about world peace, to end poverty all over the world, and to advocate environmental regulations. A renewed identification of the gospel with social justice can be heard in many churches, as well as impatience with the idea that salvation is for heaven and not for this world.

I am not saying that emergents are simply latter-day versions of Comte. But I will say that many of them are intellectuals in the old style. Their obsessive theorizing about the course of history and their absorption with grand political change are characteristic of alienated model-mongers. I see two problems with their leftward tilt, just as I see other problems with populist conservatism among evangelicals.

1. The evils of this world are not systemic, but spiritual. Reorganize, restructure, reform all you want, but the power of wickedness will merely shift. A culture is only transformed as the individuals who live in it are reborn in Christ. The reason evangelicals are failing spiritually in America is not that they have ignored progressive political causes, but that they have ignored the Holy Spirit's call to their own souls.

2. Evangelical pastors should not surrender their authority to intellectuals. Every generation since the French Revolution has seen vicars of "progress" emerge. These parsons, whom Malcolm Muggeridge used to call "tame clergymen," bow from their pulpits to the greater authority of Comte's social sciences, giving their benediction to whatever totalist model has favor this year, whether it's emissions caps or a UN war crimes tribunal. A pastor's authority is in his fidelity to the Bible, not to the consensus at Davos.

The linkage between the Kingdom of Christ and earthly power is an old, old folly. If emergents are unable to shake the euphoria of knowing how to change everything, they will end in the enclaves of bitterness, and nothing will have changed.

Auguste Comte (III)

opusprima — Sun, 11 May 2008 19:05:29 +0000

La ciencia positiva de Comte sólo toma como objeto de estudio los fenómenos o datos sensibles con el único propósito de establecer las leyes que regulan las relaciones entre ellos. Sólo es objeto de conocimiento lo verificable empíricamente y puede expresarse en leyes, por tanto, a la ciencia sólo le interesa el cómo y rechaza todo cuanto sea metafísico o ajeno a la comprobación, es decir, obvia el qué, el por qué y el para qué. Así, la finalidad de la ciencia es la pura utilidad, cubrir las necesidades del hombre ante posibles eventualidades y no buscar la verdad de las cosas, todo aquello que trascienda la experiencia vital. Comte rechaza todo conocimiento humano que implique introspección ya que no admite verificación. El saber acerca del hombre sólo puede ser sociológico o biológico, es decir, se comprende al hombre como una mera máquina como dijera Descartes.

Auguste Comte (II)

opusprima — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:03:28 +0000

La doctrina filosófica de Comte se centra en la ley de los tres estados que representa la progresión del espíritu humano, y afecta tanto al modo de conocimiento, al modo de sociedad como al modo de ser del individuo. Cada uno de los tres momentos (teológico, metafísico y positivo) define una caracterización total de la realidad humana.

El estado teológico representa el estado en el que se intenta dar explicación del mundo natural a partir de lo sobrenatural. Este periodo está caracterizado por el dominio de la imaginación sobre la inteligencia. Se distinguen tres etapas cronológicas: fetichismo, politeísmo y monoteísmo. Cada etapa es más perfecta que la anterior. El monoteísmo supone la unificación del principio explicativo de la naturaleza y adquiere su culminación con el catolicismo. En el aspecto social este periodo se singulariza por el régimen teocrático.

En el segundo estadio, de transición, la razón reflexiva sustituye a la fantasía y la metafísica a la religión. Sin embargo la función de esta etapa es crítica y no aporta ningún conocimiento nuevo, sino que sólo hace ver que las creencias teológicas son impugnables. Este periodo se inicia con la Edad Moderna y finaliza con la Revolución francesa. A nivel social es un estado revolucionario, por lo que es más sensible a los derechos del ser humano que a las obligaciones.

El último estadio es el paso definitivo en el proceso evolutivo. La fantasía y el mito son totalmente erradicados por la implantación de un saber basado en la experiencia: la ciencia o filosofía positiva. La perfección de esta etapa consiste en la unificación de todos los saberes a través de unas mismas leyes y de una misma metodología. En esta última etapa se consigue el orden social producido por el catolicismo, pero se sustituye el fundamento teológico de la sociedad por una base eminentemente científica.

Auguste Comte (I)

opusprima — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:09:22 +0000

Auguste Comte, padre de la sociología, nació en la ciudad francesa de Montpellier en 1798 en el seno de una familia católica y monárquica. Ya de joven revela sus grandes dotes intelectuales junto a un espíritu metódico que será constante en su obra. Pronto se empapa de la lectura de Hume, Adam Smith o Diderot. Con apenas 19 años empieza a trabajar como secretario del filósofo Saint-Simon. Acabados los estudios no consigue plaza de docente por lo que se dedica a impartir clases de filosofía en privado. Con 27 años se casa con Carolina Bassin, una antigua dama de la noche que pronto le abandona llevándose todos sus ahorros. Comte cae en una profunda crisis e intenta acabar con su vida por lo que es internado en un hospicio.

Una vez restablecido publica Curso de filosofía positiva (1830) con la que alcanza un notable prestigio. Sin embargo no le conceden la cátedra y sólo es admitido como auxiliar en el Politécnico de París. En 1844 publica Discurso sobre el espíritu positivo, se separa de su mujer y se enamora perdidamente de Clothilde de Vaux, que muere al cabo de dos años. Comte idealizará a su amada como símbolo de la nueva humanidad que ha de nacer con su filosofía positiva y por el amor que siente por ella habrá un retorno a la religiosidad. Entre 1851 y 1854 publica el Sistema de política positiva en el que instituye la nueva religión de la humanidad. En 1852 publica el Catecismo positivista. En los últimos años se dedicó a elaborar una síntesis de todas las ciencias que debían componer el espíritu positivista, pero la muerte le sorprendió el 5 de septiembre de 1857 a modo de cáncer de estómago.

El sistema de August Comte se caracteriza por la pretensión de armar una reforma social mediante el establecimiento de nuevas instituciones y estructuras. Primero quiso levantar un espíritu que definiera su modelo social por lo que realizó una reforma de las ciencias como base sólida para configurar la sociedad, pues tenía muy claro que no se trataba de cambiar las instituciones por otras nuevas y diferentes, sino que lo que tenía que producirse era más bien un cambio de las bases de carácter teológico y religioso por unas más afines al progreso de la razón: la ciencia.

Para Comte, era necesario la unificación de las ciencias bajo unos mismos principios metodológicos para alcanzar un mismo objeto, el fenómeno social. La sociología, que introduce Comte por vez primera en el pensamiento universal se erige como la primera ciencia y como principio rector del cuerpo social, pues el filósofo y matemático francés, contrario al liberalismo, negó siempre la soberanía popular para concedérsela exclusivamente a la ciencia.

On The Possibility for a History of Philosophy

A.K. Strong — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:54:35 +0000

When someone speaks of the history of something, it is commonly understood as an unfolding of events, or a historical narrative of past actions. Despite our inclinations to tell the story of the past, we have no real basis for the certainty that the events are at all connected. In the case of a history of philosophy: with what degree of certainty can we claim that because one thinker had a certain thesis, a later thinker had another? Why has history felt the need to put the past into a narrative of an unfolding chain of events?
The alternative stance to a historical narrative would assert that events are not connected. Instead of manifesting the past as an unfolding of events, the past would be separate absurd instances. By linking instances together and interpreting multiple events in terms of cause and effect, the historian is thereby making a hefty assumption of causality. However, if this were popular thought, practical morality would vanquish alongside responsibility, resulting in a highly dysfunctional and lawless society, suggesting that this narrative of history also acts as a social control mechanism. To examine this, we must first determine what a history of philosophy would look like under the pretext of popular narrative history.
A helpful way of understanding the history of the modern era comes with the application of Comte’s law of three stages. This law describes three different theoretical states of human intelligence throughout one’s development. First is the theological or fictitious state, then in later years the physical or abstract state, and lastly the scientific or positive state. “There are three kinds of philosophy or general systems of conceptions on the aggregate of phenomena which are mutually exclusive of each other” (Comte 129). That is to say these three systems, which concentrate on the whole of existence, the ‘aggregate of phenomena,’ are individually different but mutually exclusive in that they are one in the same mind as well as part of the same overall unfolding progression of consciousness. The same psychology of the intellectual development of the individual is applicable to the psychology behind the history of the modern period.
One would commonly encounter the theological state as a small child, just discovering the world. When reflecting on why things are the way they are, Comte claims they are conceived as “produced by the direct and continuous action of more of less numerous supernatural agents, whose arbitrary intervention explains all the apparent anomalies of the universe” (ibid). The child is able to accept his or her surroundings as merely objects that are, without any specific agent or meaning. It is not until shortly after that ‘warm blob’ becomes associated and personified with ‘mama,’ and any meaning is attributed to the object that carries you. Next, in the metaphysical state, “the supernatural agents are replaced by abstract forces, real entities or personified abstractions, inherent in the different beings in the world” (ibid). Where earlier the question was ‘why objects?’ it has now become ‘who put them there?’ Here the child begins to understand humans as having some sort of agency to manipulate the world around them, ultimately leading to the notion of responsibility. Lastly, “in the positive state, the human mind, recognizing the impossibility of obtaining absolute truth, gives up the search after the origin and hidden causes of the universe and a knowledge of the final causes of phenomena” (ibid). Becoming cynics in retrospect, we accept the boundaries and limitations of our cognitive capabilities and begin to develop an interest in the unfolding of an idea, or the corresponding pattern of another set of ideas, rather than seeking truth in the individual ideas, notions, or theories as was previously the norm. By applying this same psychological unfolding of the individual to the modern period a history of philosophy is able to emerge—a narrative of the emerging relations. Whether or not the story is valid and to what end the story anticipates remain questions on the horizon for future thinkers to come.
René Descartes established the modern era with his methodological doubting of his prior beliefs in search of an unshakable piece of truth. Everything he knows must be unlearned in order to free his mind of false or misleading modes of knowing, in order to “establish anything at all in the sciences that [is] stable and likely to last” (Descartes 19). He begins with the most elementary mode of understanding, that of sense-certainty as the starting point for his solipsistic examination of himself and his ‘I’ which thinks.
In order for Descartes to remain absolutely certain that whatever knowledge he comes upon is true and steadfast, he must doubt any mode of knowing which has deceived him in the past. He claims, he “should hold back my assent from opinions which are not completely certain and indubitable just as carefully as I do from those which are patently false” (Descartes 20). Although his senses may not deceive him at all times, they have in the past, and he must thereby resolve that no conclusions reached through his senses are reliable truths, for “it is prudent never to trust completely [that] which has deceived us even once” (ibid). The application of senses to a medium to reach a conclusion (such as in physics, astronomy, medicine, etc.) remains doubtful to Descartes; he puts his stock in math and geometry—the purely intelligible, rather than the purely sensible. For example, what we rationalize as ‘depth perception’ is merely an instance in which the senses routinely deceive. Although the tree in the distance only appears a few inches high, we ‘know,’ or understand that it is indeed much taller than two inches, despite the input of our senses. This problem remains troublesome for Descartes throughout his meditations and lies at the core of his investigation. On the contrary, he believes the purely intelligible realm of math is the more reliable medium of understanding truth. “For whether I am awake or asleep, two and three added together are five, and a square has no more than four sides. It seems impossible that such transparent truths should incur any suspicion of being false” (Descartes 21). Whether conscious or unconscious, a two and three will always result in five, and a triangle will remain a three-sided figure long after Descartes has died.
These intelligible truths are of paramount interest to Descartes, as they seem to exist as the key to an absolute truth. For Descartes, the world around him is merely a product of his intellect. This doubting of the senses and sensory world is an illustration of the primary fictitious stage of Comte’s three stages of history. Like a child discovering him or herself as an agent in the world alongside the sheer mystery behind the objects, Descartes discovered that even in the sensory world one is unable to escape their own mind, meaning “bodies are not strictly perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination but by the intellect alone” (Descartes 26).
Inheriting this problem and moving into the Abstract stage of development, Baruch Spinoza took Descartes emphasis on mathematical truths and built an entire system of a unitary substance based on self-evident axioms. In this system, Spinoza examines the totality of existence as a single overarching ‘substance’ governed by logical necessities. Definitively, substance is “what is in itself and is conceived through itself, i.e., that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from with it must be formed” (Spinoza 115). Substance stands alone and exists on its own necessity without the need for negation against another entity. This is not to say crudely that everything is the same, but rather, ‘everything’ consists of various attributes of the same overarching substance. Where the carbon atoms that compose all sensible life as we understand it illustrate the substance, individual items or entities, cheeseburgers, viruses, wallpaper, and even inconceivable ghosts and ghouls all consist of different attributes of the larger substance (in that each of these attributes or objects are composed of carbon atoms). “Matter is everywhere the same…its parts are distinguished only modally, but not really” (Spinoza 123). This seemingly abstract notion is even illustrated in the technological advancement in the sciences. The further we see out into the cosmos and the closer we examine our microbial properties, the clearer this illustration of Substance becomes. The sheer range between the largest and furthest objects in space to the tiniest microscopic particles that compose life on earth is parallel to the totality of substance.
A substance cannot be the product of another entity, as “in nature there cannot be two substances of the same attribute, i.e., which have something in common with each other” (Spinoza 116). Thus, substances are the causes of themselves, “its nature necessarily involves existence” (Spinoza 117). Because a substance is the cause of itself, it necessarily exists, unbound by the influence of its producer(s)—ultimately, for Spinoza, this necessary and self-causing substance, simply put, is God. Insofar as God is a free and infinite entity, existing in and for itself, and each attribute is a piece of the infinite, to live as an attribute and exist as such is to play a part in the schema of substance as such—Spinoza’s idea of freedom. While Descartes also held a stake in God, Spinoza attempts to answer Descartes sensory doubt by concluding that the objects which puzzled Descartes are indeed created by the intellect, but are part of an overarching whole, each attribute a part of the entire substance, and thus of the same nature. Spinoza’s abstract stage in the unfolding of the modern era of philosophy searches for and creates a system for/of meaning within the world of doubt established by Descartes just as the child attaches meaning to the objects that before were a befuddlement. However, the logical nature of Spinoza’s entire system is subject to fire by Nietzsche who tests the limits of rationality and asserts with his notion of the ‘will to power’ that no amount of truth can come from the world or the objects within it, for the measure of all things is man. To continue to claim that we can trust out own reason and observations is to continue to invest in the cover story of society. The age of Nietzsche follows the positive stage of history, where we become aware of the limitations of our rationality and observation as legitimate vessels for reaching any degree of truth or certainty about the world.
Nietzsche’s ‘will to power’ marking the final stage of the modern period denotes the extreme subjectivity within all prior modes of thinking. ‘Will to power’ is in itself a double entendre, suggesting the will of the society goes to those in power, as well as suggesting man’s desire to overcome the world and impose a set of values and truths upon it. Nietzsche suggests the former when he states, “the judgment ‘good’ did not originate with those whom ‘goodness’ was shown! Rather it was ‘the good’ themselves, that is to say, the noble, the powerful, high-stationed and high-minded, who felt and established themselves and their actions as good, that is, of the first rank, in contradistinction to the low, low-minded, common and plebian” (Nietzsche 25). Nietzsche describes the origin of morality as coming out of a pathos of distance where economical standing and social rank determined the goodness or badness of a person. The latter prong of the double entendre of the ‘will to power’ comes with man’s desire to impose an entirely anthro-centric values system on an otherwise natural and self-contained world. Nietzsche drew upon English philosopher Herbert Spencer who stated, “that which has always proved itself useful is good” (Nietzsche 27). However, Nietzsche does not outright adopt this theory, but rather reflects upon it as inspiration for his investigation into language. The time-tested dogma is that man rose from the apes when he learned to speak, very much mirroring Nietzsche’s investigation into how man attempts to impose himself onto the world.
Following the modern period into present day post-modernity, we are able to reflect upon Nietzsche and our inability to know anything outside the realm of man. Out of this spawn a number of art forms, namely avant-garde, in which a new fascination regarding playing games with the creation and foundations of meaning become the central focus of the work as a whole. With this hindsight it becomes appropriate to ask: is the historical narrative of the unfolding of philosophy an accurate retelling of the series of events, or are the links and developments merely assumptions created to soothe the desire for continuity in a society’s history?
David Hume illustrates the idea of an absurd past without causality through his investigation of causality between events in the present. Hume’s investigation into causality leads him to question how it is possible to arrive at any degree of accuracy or certainty of our knowledge when all our knowledge is rendered through our process of perception. Initially, the real entities have a stimulus in such a way that it is translated by a sense organ. These sense organs produce sensations, which are converted to representations or ideas when finally ending up in the mind. What is most peculiar about this is Hume’s investigation into how humans continually, despite knowing this psychology of representation, create and refine science, and “in vain we do home, that men, from frequent disappointment will at last abandon such airy sciences, and discover the proper province of human reason” (Hume 359). One generation creates a metaphysical science that is ultimately debunked, but people continue in vain to create these.
Hume begins his analysis of causality by stating three principles of connection between ideas: resemblance, contiguity, and cause or effect. Resemblance is the association of an image with an idea; seeing a painting of an object leads to an impression of the object in our mind. Contiguity is an appeal to the universal understanding of an object in order to comprehend a specific instance—talking about a shoe brings up impressions of a formal shoe. Lastly, cause and effect is the pairing of a cut and pain in a single instance, associating them simply by their order of occurrence—because they happened in succession, the first instance (the cut) caused the second (the pain). By means of cause and effect, “we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses” (Hume 366). Both resemblance and contiguity require the use of our memory and our senses, however, cause and effect relations require no memory of past events and the causal relationship is totally intelligible, completely outside the realm of experience. Yet, we continually cling to these causal relationships in science laboratories and daily life. Hume asserts that with this common sense belief in the world, our knowledge has a genesis in consistency and our objectivity depends on one’s subjectivity. We infer upon the basis of an objectively constant world, yet we have no reason for believing it to be as such.
The problem with this, for Hume, is that nothing is able to more forward prior to theory. All information Hume is able to accrue is done so in the very same manner as when he was a child in his crib. “I cannot now discover an argument which, it seems, was perfectly familiar to me long before I was out of my cradle” (Hume 372). This primary belief in causal relations has at its root the faith that “the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities” (Hume 371). However, the past does not dictate the future, and any certainty of the qualities of the future is derived from uncertain means—certainty derived from subjective interpretation of real entities through the process of representation. At the end of Hume’s analysis, causality is shown to be the primary mode of association of two ideas. If philosophers striving for certainty are gathering information in the same way as a child in the crib, what then does that say about the degree of certainty that we can attain from our representations? Additionally, to what degree can history be retold given this complication with the immediate present?
Immanuel Kant introduced the idea of history as a narrative and wrote Perpetual Peace in which he explains the way in which the totality of human events is moving to an end of perpetual peace, where wars are fought with strict argumentation—the quintessential mode of being for humanity. Given that each person pursues their own end, “the unconsciously proceed toward an unknown natural end, as if following a guiding thread; and they work to promote an end they would set little store by, even if they were aware of it” (Kant 29). Without knowing the future of our society, we strive for its perfection through the pursuit of our ends. “Earlier generations appear to carry out their laborious tasks only for the sake of later ones, to prepare for later generations a step from which they in turn can raise still higher the building that nature had in view” (Kant 31). If one is to buy into historical narratives, improving the future by building on the past becomes a pragmatic work ethic. How societies keep their citizens working towards an unknown goal varies by culture, however the practice itself is ubiquitous. For Kant, even the seemingly insignificant or hindering members of society contribute to history’s unfolding.
The limitation of Kant’s Enlightenment view becomes realized within the context of our contemporary mainstream instantaneous society, which chooses to not use their reasoning ability, not out of cowardliness, but of the sheep-like qualities of placid cognition, despite their freedom to do so. Kant refers to a cowardliness that “lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use [reason] without guidance from another” (Kant 41). Humankind yearns for authority, so as to comfortably dwell in the innate cowardliness, where if one has “a book to serve as [their] understanding, a pastor to serve as [their] conscience…and so on, [one] need not exert [themselves] at all. [One] need not think, if only [one] can pay” (Kant 41). Americans, perhaps more than any other society embody this statement to the fullest through the continuation of our consumer-based economy. The problem arises when these exertion-relieving conveniences become expectancies or necessities, as is the case with most Americans. As a society, Americans are seen to have significantly more overall possessions because of the undisputed foundations and economic success of capitalism and consumerism within society. After accruing the numerous luxury items such as music players, laptops, multiple pairs of shoes, jewelry, and so on, we as a society become content, and therefore focus on the lesser issues at hand to worry about, such as celebrity gossip and fashion, because of the security felt within the bounds of our possessions.
Being able to not consider how we are going to get through the day comfortably and healthily leaves the minds of society to generally gravitate towards the entertaining aspects of life, and this is where the state of popular American society is today. This hedonistic societal mainstream of thought puts the use of public reason on hold in lieu of entertainment, because society is blinded by the omnipotent security blanket that consists of the crippling notion that American society already is the cosmopolitan intent that Kant predicts, because of the widespread gift of freedom to reason publicly.
The essential difference between modern apathy and Kant’s cowardliness is modern apathy is built on the foundation that we have ‘reached’ the cosmopolitan intent, the society where “reason absolutely condemns war as a means of determining the right and makes seeking the state of peace a matter of unmitigated duty” (Kant 116), essentially replacing war by means of bombs to war by means of breath—verbal argumentation. Clearly this is not the case, being in a time of war with multiple nations, yet somehow society manages to keep its naïvety by staying entertained and well fed. Surely there is a great deal of argumentation and debate happening in the United States, but those who partake are very much a minority within the larger scope of contemporary society. This ineptitude may very well be another cog in the antagonism machine, however, this problem of constrained use of reason is noteworthy because it has masked itself in a makeshift disguise of antagonism, essentially hiding the problem as a problem because of its majority in standing within the mainstream.
The most effective alleviation to this problem will unfortunately have to come by means of a drastic event that threatens or destroys the establishing foundations of America and its contentment. Only when the mainstream society is lacking the means to a comfortable and constantly entertained lifestyle, will this problem solve itself through the use of public reason. Unfortunately, either reasoning must become entertaining within popular culture, or the vice of entertainment and consumerism must be loosened in order for Kant’s prediction of the unfolding of human history to hold legitimacy within the post-modern world after Nietzsche. “Is it truly rational to assume that nature is purposive in its parts but purposeless as a whole?” (Kant 35). While it may not be rational, Nietzsche showed the post-modern world limits of human reason that Kant was otherwise unaware. While it perhaps defies reason, the possibility of history as an absurd amalgamation of events remains very real by post-modern standpoints.
Within post-modern society, the possibility of an absurd history becomes very real. Hélène Cixious undertakes this challenge of disavowing the history as well as understanding the bounds of human rationality in a unique, though perhaps not totally Nietzschean way (thought in hindsight, of course). “The future must no longer be determined by the past. I do not deny the effects of the past are still with us. But I refuse to strengthen them by repeating them, and to confer upon them an irremovability the equivalent of destiny, to confuse the biological and the cultural” (Cixious 875). While she does not deny that the physical effects of the past are not with us—the liberty bell is still cracked—they do not necessarily result in nor should they dictate what is to come. What is unique about Cixous is her position as a feminist theorist. Her claim is that by rejecting the phallocentric economy of social exchange and binary gender understandings she is able to elude the prevalent masculine-centered discourses, much like Nietzsche was able to elude the masculine (by default) discourse of rationality with his prophetic nihilist theory and rejection of worldly methods of judging certainty.
The extent to which a narrative history can accurately portray events in the past rests on the foundations of each culture to which their own history is formed. If we are to accept a more Kantian notion of overall progress to an unspecified end, a causal narrative of history become necessary. If Cixious prevails, the narrative of history is legitimately under skeptical scrutiny. For the time being, a causal account of history provides society with a flag to rally around and a set of data for interpretation and reflection. For the philosopher, this seemingly necessary evil must suffice for the general cohesion of the lowest common denominators of a given society. Until someone elects in (or someone incites a coup) Plato’s philosopher king, societies will continue to appease the practical and useful rather than the truthful. A history of philosophy is possible only insofar as it accounts for its historical subjectivity and ultimately its falsity. For the philosopher, a history is never possible for it can never escape society, and is ultimately a construction of mankind. For the historian, a history is possible only insofar as the historian’s society accepts Hume’ s analysis of (non) causality as common sense—a position yet to be filled.

Soziologie-Fanshop öffnet die Pforten

martinbooker — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:38:20 +0000

Posted by Martin Booker

Ab sofort betreibt dieses Blog auch einen kleinen Fan-Shop von Soziologen für Soziologen. An den Start gehen wir mit einer Fußball-Elf aus Soziologen. In der Startaufstellung:

Im Tor:
1 Auguste Comte

Die beinharte Vierer-Abwehrkette:
2 Karl Marx
3 Pierre Bourdieu
4 Georg Simmel
5 Emile Durkheim

Das Mittelfeld verspricht Flair:
6 Max Weber
7 Niklas Luhmann
8 Talcott Parsons
10 Michel Foucault

Im Sturm schließlich mit dem soziologischen Killerinstinkt:
9 Robert K. Merton
11 Erving Goffman

Die Trikots tragen jeweils die entsprechende Nummer auf dem Rücken und ein ausgesuchtes kleines Zitat auf der Brust. Zum Shop und zur Ansicht aller T-Shirts gehts mit diesem Link oder in der oberen Leiste auf dieser Seite. In den kommenden Wochen werde ich an dieser Stelle die einzelnen Spieler noch etwas genauer vorstellen.

Die Idee, Fußballshirts mit Soziologen anzubieten hatte ich übrigens von dem englischen Anbieter philosophyfootball.com (credit where credit is due), der T-Shirts mit vorwiegend philosophischen Motiven anbietet.

Und hier schließlich der berühmte Sketch von Monty Python, der hinter der Idee des Soziologen- bzw. Philosophen-Fußballs steckt (in zwei Teilen). Herrlich, wie Marx kurz vor seiner Einwechslung noch sein Manifest auf die Bank wirft!

[googlevideo=http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-3703784586008106395]

[googlevideo=http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-2413101968146058318]

A bit of a long post...

daughterofben — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:24:44 +0000

Two weeks ago, I was having a conversation with an acquaintance outside the good old JA Gibson Library. It's the end of the term, and talk drifted towards post-undergrad plans. I told this chap my plans to enter an MA program. His (paraphrased) response was

That's great! You know, I think for women to succeed in academics they have to have a "masculine" mind.

I wasn't certain how to begin responding to this remark. It wasn't made in any sort of malice, but is rather the unconscious product of centuries of constructed "essential" gender discourses. Allow me to attempt to outline the character and limitations of that discourse (obviously in a much abbreviated and fairly selective manner). I'll start with three examples from the early modern period, not because it's the origin of these arguments, but because I'm most familiar with the work from this time. The following are excerpts from a satirical poem, an anonymous didactic pamphlet, and a medical tract, respectively:

1] From Richard Ames, The folly of love, a new satyr against woman

But whilst in pleasant Dreams intrans'd he lay,

Some spirit came and stole his Rib away,

And of that crooked shapeless thing did frame

The Worlds great Plague and did it Woman name. [...]

Nature, tis own'd, did all her skill display,

And made their Bodies of the finest Clay;

She labour'd with the most industrious care,

To make their outsides beautiful and Fair

But that which must to all her Art give place,

Is womans tempting wonderworking face.

2] From The deceyte of woman, to the instruction and ensample of all men yonge and olde

Also the man shall know the ordinance of god, and how that he hath made the woman out of the middes of the man, and not of the head, betokening that she shall not be the master of the man, and also he hath not made her out of a side & set little regard by her but he hath made her of the middes to the helping of man and that man and wife shall live with one accord and one will in the state of wedlock.

3] From The anatomie of the inward parts of woman, very necessary to be knowne to physitians, surgians, and all other that desire to know themselves.

And to know whether the conception be male or female, they bid to mark whether it move more on the right side then the left, for then it is a man. If on the left more than on the right side, then it is a woman: and for that cause also is to be noted the two breasts, the right and the left: if the right be greater and harder then the left, it is a token of a man: if the left, of a woman, and if she have more pain and dolour in the right side, likewise it signifieth the man child, if in the left, a woman.

Each of these excerpts represents slightly different "essential" arguments about women. That is, they attempt to use biology, or the "natural" material beginnings of woman, to explain secondary behavioural characteristics of the female sex. These behavioural characteristics rooted in biology become the basis for assigning woman "natural" social and political roles.

In the first example, woman is made from the "crooked" rib of Adam, suggesting she is both second to Adam and morally flawed. Her outer appearance is (according to Nature) perfect, but conceals the inner flaws rooted in her primary substrate. Woman is constituted then, by a divide: according to God and Nature who made her, the woman is morally weak, but beautiful, and naturally uses her beauty to disguise her moral weakness (and thus lead men into moral error).

The second excerpt provides a similar argument, but more sober in tone (and more rooted in theology). It emphasises, once again, that woman is made second to man, and that the physical material and location from which she is taken - Adam's rib from the middle of his body - dictates her "natural" social role: she is second to man, and is made to labour physically according to the plans and commands that issue from the rational Adam's mind.

Both these examples would limit woman from political roles that require rational cognitive thought or moral decisions. In fact, considering woman's natural duplicity, one might wish to limit social interaction with the public as far as possible, especially when one considers the implications of the third excerpt. This one is, for me, the most disturbing, as it poses as a "scientific" (value free?) medical tract. Recalling the commonplace theological notion (derived from Mat.25:31-46) that those on God's left are always damned perhaps illuminates the derogatory theological and social assumptions that undergird this theory of gender.

The social assumptions behind essential theories of gender are not always accusatory. Auguste Comte in the 1800s celebrated women for their natural sympathy and moral superiority over men. The theory continues to justify, however, woman's "natural" position in the domestic sphere: she must use her moral superiority to raise a moral household. [i]

The problem with any essentialist argument, whether in praise or condemnation of any one gender, is that it tends to set up not only "natural" but also "normal" behaviours and roles that are meant to represent an entire gender.[ii] This is perhaps most disturbingly illustrated by E.O. Wilson's fairly recent theories of genetics. Wilson claims

There is no doubt that the patterns of human social behaviour, including altruistic behaviour, are under genetic control, in the sense that they represent a restricted subset of possible patterns that they represent a restricted subset of possible patterns that are very different from the patterns of termites, chimpanzees and other animal species. [...] In the process of natural selection, then, any device that can insert a higher proportion of certain genes into subsequent generations will come to characterise the species. (410)

Wilson's argument is complex. In some ways, it is merely another essentialist argument that attempts to root the social and moral behaviours of men and women in biology, this time at the genetic level. He does not claim, however, that genetics are invariable. More "successful" social behaviours may be displayed most often, thus becoming the standard (or norm) by which the species is known; however, this does not mean that alternatives to this standard do not exist in nature. [iii]

The problem is that social and political institutions use arguments like Wilson's to assert all-encompassing standards of, for example, (hetero)normal expressions of desire "natural" to each sex, failing to account for those alternate expressions of desire (which are equally as natural). This is, of course, the problem to which recent feminist scholars like Luce Irigaray, Monique Wittig, and Judith Butler respond. Butler, in Gender Trouble, summarizes the problem:

That institutional heterosexuality both requires and produces the univocity of each of the gendered terms that constitute the limit of gendered possibilities within an oppositional, binary gender system. This conception of gender presupposes not only a causal relation among sex, gender, and desire, but suggests as well that desire reflects or expresses gender and that gender reflects or expresses desire. The metaphysical unity of the three is assumed to be truly known and expressed in a differentiating desire for an oppositional gender - that is, in a form of oppositional heterosexuality. Whether as a naturalistic paradigm which establishes a causal continuity among sex, gender, and desire, or as an authentic-expressive paradigm in which some true self is said to be revealed simultaneously or successively in sex, gender, and desire, here, ‘the old dream of symmetry," as Irigaray has called it, is presupposed, reified, and rationalized. (31)

The point is that this symmetry does not exist. We think, however, that it does, and when personal desires contradict those juridically-instituted standards of normal sexual behaviour and desire, we feel guilt and shame: what Butler and Kristeva refer to as "polluted":

A polluting person is always in the wrong. He [sic] has developed some wrong condition or simply crossed over some line which should not have been crossed and this displacement unleashes danger for someone. [...] The individual body recognises its own departure from the model of institutional heterosexuality and labels these desires "abject": The ‘abject' designates that which has been expelled from the body, discharged as excrement, literally rendered ‘Other'. (181)

To make excrement of the self and throw it away is a painful process. What is most significant to note here, however, is that this pain is self-inflicted.

Butler's argument may apply specifically to heteronormative views of expressions of sex and desire, however, the internalizing process she describes applies, I think, equally well to all expressions of gender. For example, we can see how early modern and Comtian assertions of "natural" social binaries like male=primary, rational, political/ female=secondary, emotional, domestic, continue to be reproduced in statements like the one my acquaintance made: even though he does not accept the assertion that females ought to be restricted to the domestic sphere, the association between rational and masculine thought continues to linger, and the female who possesses this thought is ever-so-slightly (though perhaps not as condemningly) unfemale.[iv]

Notes

[i] Not having a translation of Comte accessible, I am forced to only paraphrase his "positivism". See http://membres.lycos.fr/clotilde/ for more online (mostly French) texts and more information.

[ii] Essentialist arguments also set up binaries that, even if re-articulated in favour of the female, result in a ceaseless linguistic power struggle between male and female in which one is always dominant to the other.

[iii] Biologist Stephen J. Gould's response to Wilson's work is perhaps most helpful in understanding the full implications of Wilson's theory. Gould writes: "If this is all that Wilson means by genetic control, then we can scarcely disagree [...] But Wilson makes much stronger claims. Chapter 27 is not a statement about the range of potential human behaviours [...] It is primarily, an extended speculation on the existence of genes for specific and variable traits in human behaviour - including spite, aggression, xenophobia, conformity, homosexuality, and the characteristic behavioural differences between men and women in Western society." (416)

[iv] To pick up on my observation that gender norms are self-inflicted, I must point out that it is not only males that reproduce these norms. A female academic friend in my lab once told me that "having children was the best experience a woman will ever have" (again loosely paraphrased); the implication of the context was that even if a woman chooses academics over family, she should yet feel as though she is lacking a critical part of what it is to be female. I wonder if this leads us back into Woolf territory, doing "homage to the convention" of "female=motherhood" in same way that nineteenth century female writers like Currer Bell, George Eliot, and George Sand gave homage to the convention of "female=silent and chaste" (594). Women are yet (re)performing discursive gender binaries that masquerade as "essential" gender properties. This point seems too important to leave in an external note, and I hope to develop this at more length in future posts.

Yes, I'm even including a works cited!

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York, Routledge, 2007.

Gould, Stephen J. From Ever Since Darwin. In Darwin. Ed. Philip Appleman. 3rd Ed. New York:Norton, 2001. 415-419.

Wilson, E.O. from Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. In Darwin. Ed. Philip Appleman. 3rd Ed. New York: Norton, 2001. 409-414.

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. In Selected Works of Virginia Woolf. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 2005. 561-634.

(All other excerpts transcribed from EEBO)

5 April 2008 ~ St. Catharines

Auguste Comte für schwarz-grüne Koaltion

martinbooker — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:52:04 +0000

Wer bei google alerts das Stichwort "Soziologie" abonniert hat, bekommt nur selten wirklich Wissenswertes serviert. Auffällig ist zudem eine deutliche Überrepräsentation von österreichischen und schweizerichen Inhalten, was wieder einmal die marginalisierte Stellung der Soziologie in Deutschland illustriert.

Heute jedoch eine Ausnahme. Neben der Simmel-Rezension in der FAZ (siehe letzter Beitrag), findet sich ein kleiner, aber feiner Artikel von Wolf Lepenies in der WELT (!) über Auguste Comte und sein Vorhaben, Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts eine eigene Partei mit ökologischen Inhalten, die GRÜNEN, zu gründen. Was kann man da noch sagen? Wir Soziologen waren halt unserer Zeit schon immer voraus ;-)

Comte sah dabei den natürlichen Verbündeten keineswegs bei den "rückständigen Revolutionären", den Sozialisten, sondern vor allem bei den Katholiken, also auf die heutigen Verhältnisse in Deutschland übertragen am ehesten bei CDU/CSU. Ein frühes Hamburger Modell? Zum Artikel.

Comte and History

A.K. Strong — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:40:29 +0000

Comte’s law of three stages describes three different theoretical states of human intelligence throughout one’s development. First is the theological or fictitious state, then in later years the physical or abstract state, and lastly the scientific or positive state. “There are three kinds of philosophy or general systems of conceptions on the aggregate of phenomena which are mutually exclusive of each other” (Comte 129). That is to say these three systems, which concentrate on the whole of existence, the ‘aggregate of phenomena,’ are individually different but mutually exclusive in that they are one in the same mind as well as part of the same overall unfolding progression of consciousness.
One would commonly encounter the theological state as a small child, just discovering the world. When reflecting on why things are the way they are, Comte claims they are conceived as “produced by the direct and continuous action of more of less numerous supernatural agents, whose arbitrary intervention explains all the apparent anomalies of the universe” (ibid). The child is able to accept his or her surroundings as merely objects that are, without any specific agent or meaning. It is not until shortly after that ‘warm blob’ becomes associated and personified with ‘mama,’ and any meaning is attributed to the object that carries you. Next, in the metaphysical state, “the supernatural agents are replaced by abstract forces, real entities or personified abstractions, inherent in the different beings in the world” (ibid). Where earlier the question was why objects? it is now who put them there? Here the child begins to understand humans as having some sort of agency to manipulate the world around them, ultimately leading to the notion of responsibility. Lastly, “in the positive state, the human mind, recognizing the impossibility of obtaining absolute truth, gives up the search after the origin and hidden causes of the universe and a knowledge of the final causes of phenomena” (ibid). Cynics in retrospect, we accept the boundaries of our cognitive capabilities and begin to develop an interest in the unfolding of an idea, or the corresponding pattern of another set of ideas, rather than absorbing ideas.
Comte adds his overall conclusion from the set of laws, “if, on the one hand, every positive theory must necessarily be founded upon observations, it is, on the other hand, no less true that, in order to observe, our mind has need of some theory of other” (Comte 131). These stages that Comte proposes are the theory that our mind needs in order to observe—the theory behind our observation. Comte describes the primitive mind, running around in circles, unable to comprehend at the level of the positive state, the current state. We understand the history and narrative of our past like we describe a child growing aware of its self. If, as we observe, all underlying theories of understanding are merely a stage of an unfinished development, what then makes us so sure of anything, including the notion that all understanding is historically unfolding in effect of a previous stage or insight?

New Pages

Rene Tyree — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:46:27 +0000

As my studies progress, I've found need of several more pages on the blog. Those of you who roam around a bit will know that I've intentionally used the more static "page" feature of my blog template to accumulate information that I'm picking up from classes and research. To that end, I've added the following:

the philosophers / sociologists
I've discovered a group of people that aren't pure historians and who have influenced thought in areas not specific to military history. You'll only find Auguste Comte there so far but watch for more (interesting fellow - pictured here).

the terms
I've got a ton of new words / terminology coming my way and I need a spot to jot them down and eventually define them. I'd also like to be able to go back to them in one spot. It's looking very highbrow-ish to me now that I've added words from today's reading in Breisach. You, on the other hand, may look at the words and think I must have been sleeping in Freshman general ed classes. OK I knew some of these terms before today!

the railroads
It occurred to me when I did my two posts on the railroads and the American Civil War just how important the rails were to this - arguably - first modern war. Since I also have a page on the ships, I decided to begin collecting railroad information as well. For now it has links to the two railroad-specific post I made last month. More to come.

Kudos
Finally, I've add a kudos page which it's possible is an act of shameful self-aggrandisement but I prefer to think of it as a karmic act of thanks to those folks who have taken the time to make a nice comment either on my blog or theirs. It's my modest plug back to them and where possible, I provide a link to their site. Thanks to all for the encouragement. And if I missed anyone, I'll hope to fill in the gaps shortly. Oh and by all means, if you'd prefer I take you name off of this page, do let me know.

Top photo: Auguste Comte. Public Domain. Source: Wikicommons.
Middle photo: Station at Hanover Junction, Pa., showing an engine and cars. In November 1863 Lincoln had to change trains at this point to dedicate the Gettysburg Battlefield. LOC: 111-B- 83.

The Relevance of Positivism in Social Science

deepaktripathi — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:20:34 +0000

Sussex Paper

Deepak Tripathi

January 2003

The philosophy of positivism founded by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) has come under severe criticism in the last 40 years. Criticism in itself of something that is 150 years old is not surprising. A set of theories developed by Comte so long ago is being examined and tested by social scientists now when we have the benefit of the knowledge gained over more than a century. Society has moved on in this period; there are new perspectives and many more minds ready to challenge the old theories. So the post-positivist social scientists are justified in one respect at least.[1]

The sustained, repeated assaults on positivism over many years are quite another matter. In this respect, its critics seem to have exhausted themselves in order to demolish positivism. This raises new questions. What is post-positivism? Is it an exercise to dismiss again and again something that is old and has encountered difficulties when tested in the modern world? Does post-positivism provide a coherent alternative to positivism? Is there anything relevant in the advocacy of a scientific approach in social enquiry that Comte first advocated all those years ago?

As Anthony Giddens says, positivism has become a term of abuse. It is not fashionable to suggest that contemporary philosophers have anything to do with it. However, I am going to raise this possibility as I pose the questions mentioned in the above paragraph. But first it is important to recognise that social inquiry cannot serve its purpose if it is not relevant in the conditions in which it takes place. We need to look at positivism in its historical perspective - the social conditions in which it evolved. I will therefore examine its development to logical positivism, which I describe as a more rigorous form of positivism. I will look at some of the criticisms of positivism in today's context. At the same time, there will be a concurrent investigation into whether there are positivist undercurrents in what the post-positivists propose. I will not hesitate to speculate about the social factors that have influenced post-positivism. I do not claim to have read all, even most, of the relevant literature before I present my view. Rather, it is an attempt to understand positivism and to determine whether it is time to accept those elements which are relevant in social science inquiry, and then move on, leaving behind those which are not.

Development of positivism: a historical perspective

One of the most significant contributions of Comte, in his early work, was the law of three stages of knowledge. These stages were theological, metaphysical and positive. It is not in dispute that the formulation of this law played a significant role in pushing science to the forefront and relegated theology and metaphysics in the study of society. In this sense, the idea remains as relevant today as it was then. What drove him to this position?

Comte lived in the wake of the French Revolution, which began in 1789. He grew up when there was political and social upheaval in the country. It was also a period of great tensions between France and its neighbours - Austria and Britain included. France had declared war on Britain and was supporting the American war of independence against British rule.[2] On the other hand, Britain had been through the Industrial Revolution by the mid-nineteenth century. The bulk of the working population in the country had changed from agriculture to industry. Big advances in the farming methods were being introduced. Steam power had all but replaced the use of muscle, wind, and water. The textile industry was the prime example of industrialisation. Roads, railways, and steamships were to radically change the face of society. All this brought profound changes in Britain, leaving France behind. The consequences of the internal chaos and wars with other European countries were corrosive for the French society. Emmett Kennedy discusses the impact of these events on the philosophy of Comte:

The absence of any integrated, organic culture after the disorder that followed the Enlightenment and the Revolution indicated to Auguste Comte the deep malaise that beset French society. The organic worldview of medieval Christianity had been disturbed. ... He approached the problems of society with reason alone; in that he was a philosopher. But he wrote from ... the side that had learned the cost of corrosive criticism.[3]

It is easier to understand the intervention of Comte in the above context. His philosophy of positivism was a product of widespread upheaval in his own country, conflict with its neighbours and profound social changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in Britain. The introduction of machinery in the day-to-day running of society in Britain had propelled the use of science and technology to the forefront of human thinking. Theology and metaphysics had been demoted. It is hardly surprising that almost all of the definitions of positivism by Comte have something to do with science. For example:

Positivism is a theory of knowledge according to which the only kind of sound knowledge available to humankind is that of science grounded in observation.

Positivism is a unity of science thesis according to which all sciences can be integrated into a single natural system.[4]

The impact of scientific advances on society gives further clues about his work. Peter Halfpenny points out that, to Comte, sociology was the ‘queen of the sciences'. Positivism was ‘scientific' because knowledge had practical value and the growth of science was for the benefit of humankind. To him, it was ‘empiricist' as only humans could experience it. It was ‘encyclopaedic' because all the sciences came under a single system of natural laws. And it was ‘progressivist' because social stability could be restored by re-establishing a moral order, based on scientific knowledge, not on religion which made the world mysterious and prevented empirical inquiry, or metaphysical speculations which had no practical value.

As France was going through political disorder and human suffering, the main concerns for Comte would have been how to re-establish social order and achieve scientific progress for the benefit of society. Therefore, we see the assertion by him that sociology was the "queen of sciences" and that ‘all sciences came under a single system of natural law'. It is true that Comte placed great stress on hierarchy. It became even more obvious in the latter part of his life, when he began to talk of the need for ‘a strong moral order', which his critics described as a new kind of theology. In Comte's view, there were four enemies of the positive philosophy: religion (as a dogma not as a moral force), metaphysics (in which he included psychology), individualism (which to him was the cause of social disorder) and revolutionary utopianism.[5]

It was at this stage that those who had agreed with his early views came to oppose him. His critics were essentially positivists, but began to articulate their differences with Comte. They also showed a marked reluctance to accept the ‘positivist' label on themselves. By this time, the assessment of Comte had begun in several centres. The English sociologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was a supporter of the theory of evolution like Comte but differed with him in two important respects. For unlike Comte, Spencer was a strong advocate of the pre-eminence of the individual over society and of science over religion (Comte's new theology of a new moral order).

In his ‘Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte', Herbert Spencer devotes the entire first chapter to his criticism of Comte:

M. Comte's ideal of society is one in which government is developed to the greatest extent - in which class-functions are far more under conscious public regulation than now - in which hierarchical organisation with unquestioned authority shall guide everything - in which the individual life shall be subordinated in the greatest degree to the social life.

Spencer's response:

That form of society towards which we are progressing, I hold to be one in which government will be reduced to the smallest amount possible, and freedom increased to the greatest amount possible - one in which human nature will have become so moulded by social discipline into fitness for the social state, that it will need little external restraint, but will be self-restrained - one in which the citizen will tolerate no interference with his freedom ...[6]

On Comte's law of three stages, Spencer writes (in the same chapter) that there is one, and in essence, the same method of philosophising. The integration of causal agencies is a process, which involves the passing through all ‘intermediate steps' between these extremes. Any appearance of stages, says Spencer, can be but ‘superficial'.

Although Spencer chose to concentrate on his disagreements with Comte, especially over his assertion about the need for subordination of the individual to universal laws, Spencer was a positivist. He may have taken issue with the law of three stages, but what he offered in its place was very similar: ‘intermediate steps' between the extremes - theology and science. He and his contemporary English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) applied scientific rigour to the study of society.

Like Spencer, J S Mill was also impressed with Comte's early work, and was in fact responsible for introducing his ideas in Britain. Mill agreed with Comte that the study of society had been retarded by its failure to employ scientific methods; and he was in agreement with the empirical methods recommended by Comte, including observation, experiment, comparison and historical methods. However, being a strong supporter of individual liberty, Mill dissented from other aspects of Comte's ideas. If Comte was the pioneer who founded positivism, Spencer, and Mill, representing the British school, followed.

The same trend was noticeable in France, too. As Halfpenny records in Positivism and Sociology (p 23), Emile Durkheim (1858 - 1917) was instrumental in establishing an academic discipline in French universities at the beginning of the twentieth century. Durkheim adopted Comte's major themes - empiricism, sociologism, naturalism, scientism, and social reformism, as well as contributed much to the development of sociology as a separate science. But, like Mill, he thought that Comte's formulation of the law of three stages ‘verged on metaphysical speculation'. Durkheim added a ‘quite independent tradition' of statistics in his book Suicide (1897); for he brought Comtean social philosophy and the collection and analysis of social facts together:

At every moment of its history, each society has a certain tendency towards suicide. The relative intensity of this tendency is measured by taking the relationship between the total of voluntary deaths and the population of all ages and sexes. We shall call this numerical datum the rate of mortality due to suicide, characteristic of the society under consideration. It is generally calculated in proportion to a million or a hundred thousand inhabitants ...[7]

The areas of agreement between Comte and Durkheim were significant. Durkheim said that social facts were ‘no different' than facts about the physical world and therefore there was no reason why the methods used to study the natural sciences could not be used in the social studies[8]. He stressed the need for objectivity and rules. And he argued that there were external objects (social factors) that influenced human behaviour, that society was greater than the sum total of its members and that the properties of society could not be understood by studying individuals only living in it.

By the 1920s and early 1930s, a group of philosophers and scientists describing itself as the Vienna Circle had begun to discuss the implications of logic for the debate. There was a striking similarity with the social conditions in which Comte founded positivism. For members of the Vienna Circle were debating in the wake of the devastation caused by the Second World War. Under the leadership of Moritz Schlick, the Vienna Circle argued for a ‘reduction of human knowledge to scientific and logical foundations'. To separate itself from positivism, the Vienna Circle adopted the term ‘logical positivism'. One of its most significant characteristics was its rejection of the non-empirical statements made in metaphysics, theology, and ethics as meaningless. Ethics and morality, the Circle believed, are a matter of taste and not connected to science. Science, the Circle said, tells only what will happen, not what should happen.

In an essay entitled ‘Logical Positivism' (Positivism and Sociology, p 47), Peter Halfpenny makes a further distinction between positivism of Comte and that of the Vienna Circle. Logical positivism, he says, was scientistic but not progressive or social reformist. And, he adds that the Vienna Circle believed the growth of science would benefit humankind but would not do so necessarily.

Positivism and its essence

It is very difficult to gain a clear understanding of positivism because of the number of ways in which the term has been defined and interpreted by many of its supporters and critics. It is, however, safe to say that an important goal of positivism was objectivity. The law of three stages of Comte suggests that he used the term ‘positive' to mean ‘scientific'. His assertion was that scientific inquiry must be empirical; it should be based on the observation of facts and not on religion which created mystery about the world, or metaphysics which was of no practical value. In 1944, W T Stace wrote a critique of positivism. In it, he put forward his Positivist Principle, which explains the essence of positivism:

A set of words purporting to express a factual proposition P is significant only if it is possible to deduce or infer from it, in combination if necessary with other premises, some proposition or propositions (Q1, Q2, Q3 ... etc), the truth or falsity of which it would be logically possible to verify by direct observation. If no such direct deductions are possible, then the set of words purporting to express P is non-significant, and P is not really a proposition at all.[9]

The use of verification by ‘direct observation' is noticeable. For it helped to free positivism of theological and metaphysical presuppositions. Stace developed from this the Principle of Observable Kinds later in the essay, and explained why (p 218). He recalled that the Vienna School had, at one stage, required full and complete verification under the ‘Principle of Verifiability', but had faced difficulty. It was realised that if direct verification were required, statements about the past would become ‘non-significant', because it was logically impossible to observe the past. For the same reason, if complete verification were required, all universal statements would be impossible to verify. As a consequence, the Vienna school later came to accept indirect and partial verification. Stace said that, in his Principle of Observable Kinds, verification meant the possibility of observing at least some of the effects of a statement for it to be significant.

We require general laws for verification. Laws, in turn, characterise relationships between given objects. We need data to arrive at general laws. In his System of Positive Philosophy (1830, pp 5-6), these were precisely the recommendations of Auguste Comte.[10] Writing his essay, In Defence of Positivism (Sociological Theory, 1985, pp 24-36), Jonathan Turner makes strong criticisms of modern sociologists who, he says, have portrayed Comte as an ‘eccentric' and positivism as ‘negative' and ‘naïve'. He says that modern sociologists ‘rarely theorise', which is why our knowledge about the social universe is ‘embarrassingly little'. Turner's view is that this lack of knowledge is because ‘we have failed to be positivists in Comte's sense of the term'.

Post-Positivism: some reflections

Post-positivism is a confusing term. It does not represent one school of thought, but includes philosophers and social scientists that have been strongly critical of Comte and ‘logical positivism' of the Vienna Circle over the last four decades. For example, there are those who reject the positivist view that the aim of scientific investigation should be to find regularities between events, or laws that can be used to make society better; rather, they say, human behaviour cannot be determined by external laws and the investigation should be into the underlying causes of events (Critical Realism). Then there are advocates of social inquiry by interpretation (Interpretive account). Some say there should be a strict separation between objectivity and all value judgements (Ideal types). Still others regard theories as catalytic agents that will overthrow, or replace the established order and create something new (Critical Theory). There are advocates of social inquiry into the actions of individual actors (Methodological Individualism) and of inquiry within a framework (Functionalism). And so on ...

Positivism was about understanding the world so that we could predict and control it by changing laws. In a period of chaos in Europe, it was for order and unity. Post-positivism has renounced unity and represents ‘methodological pluralism'.[11]

Yosef Lapid has described post-positivism as a ‘loosely patched-up umbrella' of remotely related articulations.[12] I am interested in looking at the context in which the new philosophy of science is seeking to establish itself. This context is radically different from the glory days of ‘logical positivism' in the 1920s and 1930s. The Second World War (1939 - 1945) ended in the defeat of fascism and set the stage for the economic and political reconstruction of Western Europe. Since the 1950s, we have seen an intensification of the ideological war, followed by the defeat of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The United States and West European countries have enjoyed an increasing degree of individual freedom and prosperity in the second half of the twentieth century. Countries of the former Communist bloc are rapidly moving towards that goal. This is reflected in the ‘pluralism' of the post-positivist era.

Also in the second half of the twentieth century, decolonisation has seen the emergence of a large number of new nations. First, it happened as a result of the withdrawal by the old colonial powers like Britain and France from Asia and Africa; then, in Europe and Central Asia when the Soviet Union disintegrated. The process has been chaotic. Political upheaval still continues in several parts of the world, but there is little doubt that the most important social and political phenomenon to emerge out of all this is democracy. There has been greater pluralism of ideas and political views in societies which are mature democracies: for example, the United States and West European countries. One need not go back more than 40 years to see this diversity in the movements opposed to the American role in Vietnam, nuclear armament, capitalism and free trade, environmental pollution and so forth. The main characteristic of these, and of the social phenomena like the Hippie movement in the 1960s, has been opposition to the ‘established order'. Even as problems with the centrally planned economic system in the Soviet bloc were becoming increasingly obvious, and the system was collapsing, Marxist thinking continued to exercise considerable influence at university campuses and the thinking of many post-positivist philosophers (in Critical Realism and Critical Theory, for example).

Clearly, a ‘more precise formulation' of the vastly differing post-positivist philosophies is needed to understand them better. Debra Morris has provided an account that distinguishes post-positivism from its predecessor and suggests some common features within its components.[13] According to Morris, post-positivism represents: (1) a determination to free theoretical speculation from strict dependence on confirming data (2) gives the theory component ‘a pride of place' and approaches science in a philosophical way, and (3) opens a direct link to democratic theory.

The most simple and enduring definition of democracy is that of Abraham Lincoln, who described it as ‘a government of the people, by the people, and for the people'. However, democracy in the second half of the twentieth century, both in aspiration and reality, has thrown complications. Different individuals and groups in each society have differing views about its meaning and how it would best serve the interests of citizens. Nationalist aspirations have given rise to an increasing number of conflicts. Spirited debates continue in established democracies about what kind of society there should be. Such debates cannot take place without ‘democratic individuality'[14] and ‘perspectivism'[15]. The former acknowledges the right of equal say for each individual, the latter allows underlying assumptions in the formulation and application of theory. The need for maintaining neutrality or distance from the objects of social inquiry does not come into it.

What then happened to objectivity? As assumptions have become an accepted part of post-positivism, its supporters may say that objectivity is not really their goal. Those who engage in social inquiry critical of the existing order claim that they want to change the status quo in any case. Others contend that post-positivistic pluralism creates conditions for ‘objective conclusions' to be reached. This presupposes that all those who wish to reach objective conclusions have the knowledge to do so. Another major problem arises in deciding which of the large number of alternatives to choose, and how to avoid ‘ignorance' or ‘intolerance' in the absence of clear ‘criteria'?[16] Indeed, as Thomas Biersteker says, ‘post-positivist scholars have been extremely effective critics but have been generally reluctant to engage in the construction and elaboration of alternative interpretations and understandings'.

Having focused on the many differences, let us finally see what remains common between positivism and post-positivism. Rejection of metaphysical inquiry in favour of science was the most important feature of positivism. It remains among the foundations of modern social inquiry. The role of theory and science was always crucial for positivists.[17] So it is today. To Comte, positivism had practical value and the growth of science was for the benefit of humankind. Most post-positivist scholars would not deny that such reformist tendencies remain among their underlying objectives. Data collection and analysis are still part of social inquiry. The purpose of all these examples is not to deny that the two have significant differences. They do and their differences are well established. It is, however, time to move on from the debate that focuses on the criticisms of positivism towards a more coherent post-positivistic philosophy in social science.*

*Word Count: 3960.

Bibliography

- Biersteker, Thomas. September 1989. "Critical Reflections on Post-Positivism in International Relations", International Studies Quarterly: Volume 33, Issue 3, pp 265-266.

- Durkheim, Emile. 1897. Suicide (ed) Thompson, K & Martell, Luke (1985). ResFac, Sussex Library.

- Why do Durkheim's theories remain appealing to social scientists?. EssayBank, available from http://www.essaybank.co.uk/free_coursework/335.html (accessed on 20 November 2002).

- Giddens, Anthony. 1977. Positivism and its critics (pp 29-95) of Studies in Social and Political Theory. London: Hutchinson.

- History of Anglo-French relations. 29 October 2002. Guardian, from politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0%2C11538%2C821636%2C00.html (accessed on 25 November 2002).

- Halfpenny, Peter. 1982. Positivism and Sociology. London: George Allen and Unwin.

- Kateb, George. August 1984. "Democratic Individuality and the Claims of Politics", Political Theory: Volume 12, Issue 3, p 332.

- Kennedy, Emmett. 1989. A Cultural History of the French Revolution [online]. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. From www.tasc.ac.uk/histcourse/frenrev/resource/20a1.htm (accessed on 6 December 2002).

- Lapid, Yosef. September 1989. "The Third Debate: On the Prospects of International Theory in a Post-Positivist era", International Studies Quarterly: Volume 33, Issue 3, pp 235-254.

- McLennan, Gregor. 2000. The New Positivity (Ch 1, pp 18-20) of For Sociology: Legacies and Prospects (ed) Eldridge, J, MacInnes, J et al. London: Sociology Press.

- Morris, Debra. April 1999. "How Shall We Read What We Call Reality?: John Dewey's New Science of Democracy", American Journal of Political Science: Volume 43, Issue 2, pp 611-612.

- Spencer, Herbert. 1864. Reasons for Dissenting from M. Comte [online]. From www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/spencer.htm (accessed 0n 15 November 2002).

- Stace, W T. July 1944. "Positivism", Mind, New Series: Volume 53, Issue 211, pp 215-237.

- Turner, Jonathan. Autumn 1985. "In Defence of Positivism", Sociological Theory: Volume 3, Issue 2, pp 24-30.

...

[1] Anthony Giddens, ‘Positivism and its critics' (Studies in Social and Political Theory, 1977, pp 29-95).

[2] History of Anglo-French relations, Guardian, 29 October 2002, from politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0%2C11538%2C821636%2C00.html).

[3] Emmett Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution (1989, pp 374-384), available online www.tasc.ac.uk/histcourse/frenrev/resource/20a1.htm.

[4] Peter Halfpenny, Positivism and Sociology (1982, p 114).

[5] Peter Halfpenny (p 18).[6] Herbert Spencer, Reasons for Dissenting from M. Comte (1864), available from http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/spencer.htm.

[7] Emile Durkheim, Suicide, Part Four, K Thompson and Luke Martell (ed), 1985, p 95.

[8] For an overview, see ‘Why do Durkheim's theories remain appealing to social scientists', from http://www.essaybank.co.uk/free_coursework/335.html.

[9] W T Stace, ‘Positivism' (Mind, New Series, July 1944, p 215).

[10] Jonathan Turner, ‘In Defence of Positivism' (Sociological Theory, Autumn 1985, p 24).

[11] Yosef Lapid, ‘The Third Debate: On the Prospect of International Theory in a Post-Positivist Era' (International Studies Quarterly, September 1989, p 244).

[12] Yosef Lapid (p 239).

[13] Debra Morris, ‘How Shall We Read What We Call Reality?: John Dewey's New Science of Democracy' (American Journal of Political Science, April 1999, pp 611-612).

[14] George Kateb, ‘Democratic Individuality and the Claims of Politics' (Political Theory, August 1984, p 332).

[15] Yosef Lapid, ‘The Third Debate: On the Prospect of International Theory in a Post-Positivist Era' (International Studies Quarterly, Sep 1989, p 241). In the same article, he identifies, in addition to ‘perspectivism', two more component themes of post-positivism: ‘paradigmatism' and ‘relativism'.

[16] Thomas Biersteker, ‘Critical Reflections on Post-Positivism in International Relations' (International Studies Quarterly, September 1989, pp 265-266).

[17] Gregor McLennan, ‘The New Positivity' (For Sociology: Legacies and Prospects, 2000, pp 18-20).

Altruism and Egoism

Ergo — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:15:53 +0000

Colin McGinn, the philosopher who claimed to have refuted egoism in a few brief remarks, holds a very willy-nilly concept of altruism, but is adamant that egoism can only be defined as the "maximization of one's own interest." According to McGinn, an altruist can properly behave in self-interested actions occassionally; but an egoist--on principle--can never act against his own interests, which includes not dirtying your clothes to jump in to save a drowning baby.

Clearly, McGinn and altruists like him wish to claim sole proprietorship over concepts of kindness, benevolence, and charity.

Let's be very clear about what we mean by altruism:

The word "altruism" (French, altruisme, from autrui: "other people", derived from Latin alter: "other") was coined by Auguste Comte, the French founder of positivism, in order to describe the ethical doctrine he supported. He believed that individuals had a moral obligation to renounce self-interest and live for others. Comte says, in his Catechisme Positiviste, that "[the] social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth these obligations increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service.... This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are entirely." ^[1]

The Catholic Encyclopedia says that for Comte's altruism, "The first principle of morality...is the regulative supremacy of social sympathy over the self-regarding instincts." ^[2] Author Gabriel Moran, (professor in the department of Humanities and the Social Sciences, New York University) says "The law and duty of life in altruism [for Comte] was summed up in the phrase: Live for others." ^[3]

More recent reformulations of the word altruism have served up a watered down principle of a general lovey-durvy, fluffy-feely sense of kindness and benevolence toward others to make the principle seem more palatable to most people's sensibilities. Note how it is better to have a phantasmic notion of altruism than to even permit the possibility of egoism (self-interest) as a plausible moral principle for people to live by.

It stands to reason that no one can adhere to the principle of altruism strictly and consistently in their lives: it is a contradiction at the most fundamental level. To live is to act in self-preservation; to live is to engage in self-sustaining action. One cannot live by selfless action, unless one wishes to die. The proper and consistent act for an altruist would be to give up his life in an ultimate sacrifice for others (like Jesus did; now, the conundrum that the recipient of the sacrifice has to himself be sacrificed to someone else's interests and so on with every individual on earth is another thorny matter of its own).

At best, altruism can only be practised inconsistently, whimsically, and often out of guilt.

Since altruism--as a moral principle--cannot be practised consistently, philosophers like McGinn have injected doses of self-interested pursuits and common sense motivations into the principle of altruism. By doing this, altruists have appropriated the notions of kindness, charity, and benevolence, while vociferously denying that these notions are fully and logically compatible with the ethic of egoism.

Egoism is the principle of purusing one's own rational self-interest with your life as your standard of value. Properly speaking, "life as a standard of value" is a redundant elaboration of the principle of rational self-interest. Only life can provide a context for the existence of a self and for the pursuit of interests; only human life can provide the standard of rational behavior and meaning to rationality. Nevertheless, the redundancy is necessary because altruists are committed to caricaturing egoism as everything that it is not: hedonism, subjectivism, self-destruction, malice, etc.

Egoism--that is, the principle of rational self-interest--is the only principle that can be practised consistently by every individual without leaving behind a trail of mutilated, self-sacrificed corpses. Only egoism makes it possible to have a society of individuals where acts of benevolence, kindness, and charity are performed without contradiction, without conflicts of interest, and without any sacrifice.

Frases Célebres Sobre Egoismo, Orgullo Y Vanidad

Ivan de ExOpus — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:39:02 +0000

No hay verdadera felicidad en el egoismo. George Sand.
El egoísmo es el único ateísmo verdadero; el anhelo y el desinterés, la única religion verdadera. Israel Zangwill.
Primero son mis dientes que mis parientes. Refrán
Después de mi, el Diluvio. Rey Luis XV de Francia.
La juventud es la edad de los sacrificios desinteresados, de la ausencia de egoísmo, de los excesos superfluos. Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.
El orgullo es una forma de egoísmo. David Herbert Lawrence.
Un egoísta es una persona que piensa más en sí misma que en mí. Ambrose Bierce.
La simpatía, pasión animal, es también una pasión egoísta. Pero no deja de ser nuestra mejor oportunidad para evadirnos del egoísmo. Georges Duhamel.
Siempre se repite la misma historia: cada individuo no piensa más que en sí mismo. Sófocles.
He sido un ser egoísta toda mi vida, no en teoría, pero sí en la práctica. Jane Austen.
El egoísta se ama a sí mismo sin rivales. Marco Tulio Cicerón.
Un egoísta es aquel que se empeña en hablarte de sí mismo cuando tú te estas muriendo de ganas de hablarle de ti. Jean Cocteau.
Ser celoso es el colmo del egoísmo, es el amor propio en defecto, es la irritación de una falsa vanidad. Honoré de Balzac.
Mucho más que los intereses es el orgullo quien nos divide. Auguste Comte.
Entre todos los vestidos que yo he visto poner al orgullo, el que mas me subleva es el de la humildad. Henry Mackenzie.
En la mujer, el orgullo es a menudo el móvil del amor. George Sand.
El orgullo engendra al tirano. El orgullo, cuando inútilmente ha llegado a acumular imprudencias y excesos, remontándose sobre el más alto pináculo, se precipita en un abismo de males, del que no hay posibilidad de salir. Sócrates.
Aquel que es demasiado pequeño tiene un orgullo grande. Voltaire.
Lo único capaz de consolar a un hombre por las estupideces que hace, es el orgullo que le proporciona hacerlas. Oscar Wilde.
Aunque el orgullo no es una virtud, es padre de muchas virtudes. John Churton Collins.
La vanidad es el amor propio al descubierto. Bernard Le Bouvier de Fontenelle.
Hay que dejar la vanidad a los que no tienen otra cosa que exhibir. Honoré de Balzac.
La vanidad hace siempre traición a nuestra prudencia y aún a nuestro interés. Jacinto Benavente.
La más segura cura para la vanidad es la soledad. Thomas C. Wolfe.
La vanidad es tan fantástica, que hasta nos induce a preocuparnos de lo que pensarán de nosotros una vez muertos y enterrados. Ernesto Sábato.
En muchos casos hacemos por vanidad o por miedo, lo que haríamos por deber.
Ningún vanidoso siente celos. Jacinto Benavente.
El cambio de moda es el impuesto que la industria del pobre carga sobre la vanidad del rico. Chamfort.
Hablamos muy poco, excepto cuando la vanidad nos hace hablar. François de la Rochefoucauld.
Conceder el perdón es el más alto grado de vanidad o de miedo. José Luis Coll.