Suchergebnisse

Analogies between society & living organisms, including persons, have been recurrent themes in political thought. One such analogy can be traced in Auguste Comte's interest in phrenology. Comte criticized phrenological theories that sought to define a distinct brain center for every function, emphasizing the vast number of possibilities inherent in the varying combinations of a few centers, thus defining the self as a quasipolitical entity. He recognized 18 faculties divisible into three groups: those informed by the senses, those guiding the musculature, & those guided only by the metabolic interior life of the body. He analogizes these to social groups, thus comparing individual & society rather than family & society, which reflects the influence of Augustinianism in French thought. 1 Figure. W. H. Stoddard