Auguste Comte’s Reception of Nicolas de Condorcet’s Idea of the Progress of the Human Mind

This article discusses the influence of the ideas of Nicolas de Condorcet on the formation of the thought of Auguste Comte, as well as compares the theories of progress of these French philosophers according to their key criteria: education, science, and law. At the end of the 19th century, a new direction in intellectual thought appeared in France was the theory of the progress of the human mind. The author of this theory was the philosopher, mathematician, and statesman Nicolas de Condorcet. Later, Condorcet’s ideas were reflected in the works of the positivism’s founder, Auguste Comte, who on their basis created his own system of civilization progress, which was called the Law of Three Stages of the intellectual evolution of mankind. Condorcet’s doctrine can be defined as a kind of integral “system of progress,” which is founded on the concept of perfectibility (the endless ambition of man and society to improvement). According to the philosopher, the real progress of the human mind has three keystones: a developed system of public free education, progressive law and constantly improving science, technology and art. Auguste Comte, inspired by the works of Condorcet, emphasizes that the predecessor, on the first hand, created an important scientific notion of the social progress of humanity as an ongoing historical process; and on the other hand, he designated the main object of research in social philosophy, which consists in the study of the fundamental sequence of various social conditions. However, an important difference between Comte’s and Condorcet’s ideas of progress is an industrial aspect. Comte’s progress of society is inconceivable without the progress of technology and economics. And even civilization the philosopher defines as the joint development of the human mind and human impact on nature. Thus, Comte’s progress includes the progress of the sciences, the beaux-arts, and industry. The author concludes that the French philosophers’ arguments on the significance of moral and intellectual perfectibility for progress are still relevant for the contemporary technocratic world.

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