Die Idee des Westens in Comtes Arbeit. ; The idea of the West in Auguste Comte ; La idea de Occidente en la obra de Auguste Comte ; L'idée d'Occident chez Auguste Comte

Abstract

Following the year 1848, while most of his contemporaries were focusing their attentions on the political emergence of nationalities and the renewal of colonial empires, Comte and his closest followers were claiming the reconstruction of the western association and denouncing the idea according to which the West was playing a civilisation role in its attempt to dominate the whole world.Already in 1820, Comte had been interested by the Western Re-organisation outside the reference to theological or metaphysical conceptions and outside the frame of modern nations. According to him, the constitution of a new spiritual power should be the ground of this re-organisation. Such spiritual power was defined as the foundation of a system of positive education shared across the whole western Republic. In his sociology, the term "West" which Comte was finding more accurate than the term "Europe", designated an elite group within humanity. In other words, the West was the most advanced part of the human kind on the path to an adult state represented by the scientific and industrial state. Comte's originality has been to think this elite group as a way to establish a universal and free association of men around the world.Hightlighting the streams of idea having influenced Comte and underlying the input of his positivist followers, this thesis isolates the singularity of the historical transition at stake in the West. This work focuses on the proposals of Comte's positive politics aiming at both preventing western superiority to become a force of uniforming oppression and stimulating its use as a force for a worldwide solidarity and a progress without revolution. ; De la obra de Auguste Comte, padre de la sociología y fundador de la "Revue occidentale", no más se recuerdan sus aportes a la filosofía de las ciencias. En cuanto a la política positiva, desconocerla y ridiculizarla es característico de la historiografía sobre la idea de Europa. ¿Quién sabe que mientras que la mayoría de sus contemporáneos estaban obsesionados, ...