Today I pulled one of my old books from undergrad on the philosophy of history and was surprised to find that Turgot actually had a theory concerning the historical development of man. I had read this book before but I didn’t realize who Turgot actually was until I came here. So I got really excited and started to read the small blurb. Ladies and gentlemen, it doesn’t look good. The author seems to be presenting Turgot as a logical positivist. I just got a book called Prophets of Paris which is supposedly explain more about Turgot, Saint-Simon and Condercet so more information is to come on this subject. I also got Rousseau’s Social Contract and Charles Fourier’s Four Movements book. I’m really excited about that one because he is so deranged.
What is the author’s explanation for Turgot being a logical positivist?
I will just write out the prevalent portion. This is from Philosophy of History by M.C. Lemon:
'Initially, the ancients ‘communicated their ideas as a sort of baby talk’, in ‘metaphors and images’. This was linked to what Turgot saw as a bsaically ‘theological’ view of the world. But as the human mind developed, this theological approach to existence was replaced by the metaphysical approach, reflected in the correspondingly more abstract language (e.g., the philosophical achievement of the Greeks and its subsequent heritage).
But the third (and final?) stage is the growing recognition of ‘the real objective nature of things’ achieved through the application of empirical, ‘scientific’ method, and it is at this stage that reason, in coming to fruition, increasingly begins ‘to formulate…relationships [between things] in mathematical terms’. Now the metaphysical view of existence is superseded by the ‘positive’ view, and Turgot clearly meant by this the transforming (or ‘reducing’?) of as many facets of existence as possible into the rational purity of mathematical relationships.’
This is basically a representation of the logical positivists theory of stages in human development.
First stage: Theological explanations
Second stage: Essences
Third Stage: Science of positivism
Is this true?
True that Turgot said this? Or true about the positivism?
True that that is he meant.
Don’t have a copy of his work on the subject. It is in French and I can’t seem to find a translation. Hopefully I will get more information with the book I just got.
Turgot, along with Condorcet and D’Alembert were basically the fathers of Positivism in France.
I heard it was Henri de Saint-Simon who had an apprentice August Comte.
Turgot had a bad view on history, yes. Ow well; nobody is flawless.
It just seems rather strange. He is good on economics yet…well know that I think about economists usually aren’t good at history.
Yeah, you could definitely add Saint-Simon. His political teachings certainly influenced Comte (who was his secretary). You can basically view Comte as being a combination of Condorcet, Turgot and Saint-Simon as all of his work comes from them. (Principle of Progress, Law of Three Stages).