Comte's Positive Contributions and Weaknesses
Ritzer and Goodman identify eight positive contributions that Comte made to sociology:
- Comte coined the term "sociology" and may be viewed as its founder.
- Comte thought of sociology as a positivistic science.
- He elaborated four methods of sociology.
- He distinguished social statics from social dynamics.
- He was a macrosociologist.
- He viewed social structures as taming individual egoism.
- He offered a dialectical view of structural change.
- He attempted to integrate theory and practice.
Ritzer and Goodman also identify ten basic weaknesses of Comte's work:
- Comte's thought was distorted by his own experiences in life.
- He was out of touch with the real world.
- He was out of touch with other thinkers of his times.
- His empirical work is laughable, and his theoretical work far too generalized.
- His work is only marginally sociological.
- He made no original contributions to sociology.
- His sociology was primitive in its organicism — i.e., he crudely viewed society in terms of the workings of the human body.
- Comte heavy-handedly imposed his theoretical frameworks on the data he was analyzing.
- His self-conceit led him to make many ridiculous pronouncements and blunders.
- His positivist religion is strangely similar to Catholicism, which casts doubt on his scientific intentions.
- His plans for the future appear totalitarian and bizarre.
Although the sociological theory of Herbert Spencer (1820-1902) has but a small following today, his work was quite popular during his lifetime, particularly in America. Spencer's theory of society does represent an advance over Comtian theory, even though Spencer, like Comte, characterized himself as a positivist and derived his concepts of structure and function from the field of biology. Spencer used the Comtian terms of social statics and social dynamics, but not in a descriptive way as Comte did to refer to all types of societies, but rather in a normative way to describe his version of the future ideal society. Furthermore, Spencer was more interested in studying the progress of the external world or objectivity, while Comte focused more on the subjective nature of the progress of human conceptions. Finally, there are important political differences between Spencer and Comte. Spencer had little regard for centralized political control and believed that the government should allow individuals the maximum freedom to pursue their private interests. Comte, on the other hand, desired society to be led by the high priests of positivistic religion.
Spencer's Evolutionary Theory and Sociology
Spencer defined sociology as the study of societal evolution and believed that the ultimate goal of societal evolution is complete harmony and happiness. Spencer's theory of evolutionary change is built upon three basic principles: integration, differentiation, and definiteness. Spencer argued that homogenous phenomena are inherently unstable, which makes them subject to constant fluctuations. These fluctuations force homogeneous systems to differentiate, which results in greater multiformity. In other words, homogeneous systems grow to become heterogeneous.
Spencer focused much of his energy on trying to legitimize sociology as a scientific discipline. He argued that laypeople might think they deal with the same issues as sociologists do; however, they are not trained to adequately comprehend these issues. One of the ways that Spencer believed sociology could become more legitimate was for sociologists to study other disciplines, especially biology and psychology. Biology could be linked to sociology through the search for the basic "laws of life," understanding society as a "living body" and focusing on human beings as the starting point of sociological inquiries. Psychology is useful to sociology because it helps to show that emotions or sentiments are linked to social action. According to Spencer, individuals are the source of all social phenomena, and the motives of individuals are key to understanding society as a whole.