Auguste Comte and Consensus Formation in American Religious Thought—Part 2: Twilight of New England Comtism
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 8
Abstract
Auguste Comte was the most influential sociologist and philosopher of science in the Nineteenth Century. Part 1 summarized his works and analyzed reactions to them by Transcendentalists and Unitarians from 1837 until just after the Civil War. Part 2 examines in detail the post-war Transcendentalist and liberal Unitarian institutions of the Free Religious Association and the Radical Club and their different approaches to spiritual faith based on intuitionalism and reliance on scientific proof. In the background to their disputes is the positivism of Auguste Comte, who served as an easy source of common criticism. But at the same time as they wrote against positivism, both intuitionalists and those who relied on science were significantly influenced by Comte. Once again, as in part 1, a community of discourse was formed through the need to create social bonds at the expense of careful evaluation of the philosophy they criticized.
Authors and Affiliations
Kenneth S. Sacks
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25745
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080151
- Views 366
- Downloads 9
Religious Beliefs and Environmental Behaviors in China
The role of religion in the environment has yet to be empirically investigated in the country with the largest atheist population across the globe. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey 2013, we examined th...
The Effect of Prayer on Patients’ Health: Systematic Literature Review
There is increasing interest regarding prayer in healthcare. Prayer is an activity related to spirituality and religion. Positive outcomes have been identified regarding spirituality in health. This study aims to inves...
Prayer, Meditation, and Anxiety: Durkheim Revisited
Durkheim argued that religion’s emphasis on the supernatural combined with its unique ability to foster strong collective bonds lent it power to confer distinctive social benefits. Subsequent research has confirmed the...
Auguste Comte and Consensus Formation in American Religious Thought—Part 1: The Creation of Consensus
French intellectual Auguste Comte was the most influential sociologist and philosopher of science in the Nineteenth Century. This first of two articles summarizes his complex life’s works and details reactions to them...
Hostile Natives: Violence in the Histories of American and Japanese Nativism
This article shows how inaccurate the category of nativism—derived from American historiography—is when applied to the Japanese context prevailing when National Learning (Kokugaku) was flourishing. It argues that violenc...