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In what order did Auguste Comte arrange the sciences?
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Auguste Comte
Auguste Comte, drawing by Tony Toullion, 19th century; in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
Auguste Comte arranged the six basic sciences in a hierarchical pyramid, moving from the most abstract and simple to the most complex and concrete. He posited that each science depends upon and utilizes the knowledge of the sciences below it on the scale.12
The order of the sciences is as follows:
Comte placed mathematics at the fundamental level because it does not presuppose any other science. He viewed sociology as the final, crowning discipline that would synthesize all human knowledge and guide the reconstruction of society. Notably, Comte did not include psychology as a formal discipline in this system, believing it should instead be treated as a branch of biology and sociology.123