II. Influence
Comte saw himself and is often seen by others to be the founder of sociology. He coined the term, although he also uses the term “social physics.” He advocated the use of social physics as a way of improving the direction of society.
Comte can also be looked upon as the founder of positivism as a philosophical movement, although he later took positivism in a direction that would be unacceptable to twentieth century logical positivists who probably instead would look to Ernst Mach as a much better model.
Comte’s views of social progress, a science of moral phenomena and of a religion of humanity do not appeal to logical positivists. Comte is especially admitted for being a systematic thinker. He constructed a unified system of the sciences with reductionistic transitions that foreshadows attempts to establish a unified reductionist science in the twentieth century.
A number of his concepts, for example the law of three stages, the religion of humanity, are challenging and provocative even when they did not gain acceptance.
