Gofman A.B. Two Comtes, Two Marx and Two Trends of Russian Social Thought. Lichnost. Kultura. Obshtchestvo (Personality. Culture. Society. International Journal of the Social Sciences and Humanities), 2019, Vol. XXI, Issue 3-4 (103-104), pp. 112-123.

Abstract

In this article some interrelationships between basic sociological ideas of Comte and Marx, on the one hand, and Russian sociological thought, on the other hand, are analyzed. It’s well known that Comte was the founder of “positivism” in sociology, in other words of the ideas of scientism and naturalism, of the necessity to use in the social science of the “objective” method, rational, empirical and based on observation. This position he founded mainly in his “Course of positive philosophy” (1830-1842). But in his late works, namely in “System of positive politics” he demonstrated already the superiority of the opposite view point, namely “subjective”, “anti-naturalistic”, emotional. Although he insisted himself on the unity and continuity of these two approaches, we can acknowledge in his work the coexistence of the two opposite sociologies and, in a certain sense, of two Comtes, one “positivist”, and another “anti-positivist”. The Marxian doctrine contains the two similar theoretical and methodological positions; this point was already noted by the historians of social ideas. On the one hand, he was a “positivist”, a partisan of a “true”, “objective” science based on the using of the universal scientific method; on the other hand, he was a political activist who considered the practical social and political activity as a best method of social cognition. So, there were two Marx, as well as there were two Comtes, namely one “objectivist”, another “subjectivist” one. The influence of these both trends at Comte and Marx is founded in the Russian social thought of the XIXth and the beginning of XXth centuries. Some Russian Comtists and Marxists continued the “objectivist” trend in their respective works, while the another ones continued the opposite one. Herewith, the last trend in Russian thought became predominant. Some causes of this are analyzed in this article.