[Comte, Auguste de] Andreski, Stanislav.

The Essential Comte. Selected from Cours de Philosophie Positive by Auguste Comte. First published in Paris 1830-42.

London / New York, Croom Helm / Barnes & Nobles Books, 1974. 21.6cm x 13.8cm. 252 pages. Original illustrated softcover. Very good + condition with only minor signs of wear. Minor annotation on endpaper (pen).

Auguste Comte proclaimed himself the founder of sociology and, on the whole, this claim is accepted. His most important work, on which his reputation rests, is the six-volume “Cours de Philosophie Positive” of which this present book is a selective abridgement. Comte was born in Montpellier in 1798 and produced the Cours when in his thirties. His later years were interrupted by more or less serious bouts of insanity and the young advocate of scientism ended as a mystic prophet and the self-proclaimed Grand Priest of the Religion of Humanity.

Comte, as this selection from the “Cours” illustrates, was above all a methodological visionary. He was an eminently successful terminological innovator and to him we owe not only ‘sociology’ and ‘positivism’ but also ‘biology’ and ‘altruism’. Professor Andreski, in his lucid introduction, assesses Comte’s place under six headings, as a scientist, as philosopher, as sociological theorist, as sociological historian, as reformer and as methodologist. But this selection from Comte’s works will be most welcomed because it provides a modern English translation of the main body of Comte’s thought.

Stanislav Andreski has been Professor of Sociology at the University of Reading since 1964. He is the author of numerous books and articles including the highly successful “Social Sciences as Sorcery”.

Margaret Clarke, the translator of this selection, is also the author of “The Archaic Principles in Education”.

• Keywords: Political Science – Rare · Sociological History · Sociological Study · Sociology – Rare
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0856640492
• Inventory Number: 40732AB

EUR 78,--