Originally organised by the English Positivist Society in the 1930s, the Auguste Comte Memorial Lectures are now hosted by LSE Philosophy, where they provide a public platform for some of the world’s leading philosophers and social scientists.
August Comte (1798-1857) was a French philosopher who made central contributions to modern philosophy of science. He also played an influential role in the development of the social sciences. In his six volume work Course on Positive Philosophy (1830-1842), Comte provided both a systematisation of the then existing sciences and an outline for the foundations of sociology (or “social physics” in his parlance). Bound up in his work on the Course was an elaboration of Positivist Philosophy. Positivism for Comte was the view that scientific observation and theorising provides the epistemological underpinning of an “ultimate” (science based) stage in social development, replacing earlier “theological” and “metaphysical” stages. This association between science and progress provided the motivation for the form of scientific investigation of social phenomena which has become essential to our modern understanding of the world.
History
An annual lecture “dealing with the work of Comte” was first proposed in 1933, with the first lecture being held in 1935 in the Ethical Church in Bayswater. This lecture series ran until 1940 and was the result of an initiative from members of the English Positivist Committee. In 1949, the idea of reinstituting the annual Comte lecture in collaboration with LSE was raised and two years later the Committee had its first meeting with the School. A Trust Deed was drawn up into which the investments of the English Positivist Committee were transferred.
The minutes from a meeting held in May 1951 state that purpose of the funds lie in
the promotion and encouragement of study and research in social science and philosophy as a perpetual memorial to Auguste Comte in appreciation of his pioneering work in positive philosophy, sociology, and humanism, and more particularly for the endowment of a periodic lecture, upon any aspect of scientific or philosophical thought or of human activity preferably approached from a broad historical, positive and humanist standpoint.
The first lecture was given by Sir Isaiah Berlin on the 12th of May 1953 entitled “History as an Alibi”, later to be published under the title Historical Inevitability. The lecture was chaired by Michael Oakeshott, the newly appointed Chair of Political Science at the School, whose conservatism and capacity for irony made for a humorous contrast both to the political aims of positivism (the scientific reform of society) and Berlin’s liberalism.
Subsequently, the speakers who gave lectures included Morris Ginsberg, Raymond Aron, Gilbert Ryle, A. J. Ayer, Ronald Fletcher, Julius Gould, Donald Gunn, H. B. Acton, and André Béteille. The English Positivist Committee ceased to exist in 1969 with the death of its final member, Mr. D. G. Fincham. The remaining funds were subsequently transferred to the School. The Memorial Lecture Series continued until the 1980s.
The current lecture series was reinstated in 2006 and recent speakers have included Jon Elster, Will Kymlicka, Philippe Van Parijs, Allen Buchanan, Frances Kamm, Joshua Cohen, John Simmons, Jeff McMahan, Donald MacKenzie, Dan Hausman and Juliana Bidadanure. It continues to honour the terms of the Auguste Comte Memorial Trust by exhibiting and supporting pioneering work in the social sciences and philosophy.
Previous lectures
Date and Time: 1 February 2024, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Venue: Auditorium, Centre Building (CBG), LSE Campus
Although each of us derives enormous benefit from the vast network of cooperative social relations that exists among human beings, there is still no unified scientific theory that explains how we succeed in sustaining these relations. Major unanswered questions involve the relationship between biological and sociocultural factors in promoting cooperativeness, as well as the vulnerability of human social systems to stagnation or collapse. We have amassed a great deal of theory regarding these questions, but the state of scientific knowledge remains fragmented.
In recent years, however, a few pieces of the puzzle have begun to be fitted together. I will discuss two important advances: first, gene-culture coevolutionary theory, which has shed light on a number of fundamental questions about the early emergence of human sociality, and second, recent work on the development of hierarchy and the state, which has made it possible integrate fundamental sociological insights about how complex societies are maintained. I will attempt to show how these advances move us closer to having a unified scientific understanding of human sociality.
About the speaker
Joseph Heath is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada as well as the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation, Heath is the author of several award-winning books, including Enlightenment 2.0 (HarperCollins, 2014) which won the Shaughnessy Cohen prize for Political Writing in Canada in 2015, as well as The Machinery of Government (Oxford, 2020), which won the Donner Prize for best book in public policy in 2020. He is also the co-author, with Andrew Potter, of the international bestseller The Rebel Sell (Capstone, 2006).
Date and Time: 4 October 2017, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Using economics as an example, this lecture addressed a perennial philosophical question that also occupied Auguste Comte: Can inquiries into social phenomena be sciences?
About the speaker
Daniel M. Hausman is the Herbert A. Simon and Hilldale Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Ludwig M. Lachmann Research Fellow with the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science.
Professor Hausman’s research focuses on methodological, metaphysical, and ethical issues at the boundaries between economics and philosophy, and in collaboration with Michael McPherson, he founded the journal Economics and Philosophy and edited it for its first ten years. He is also the editor of The Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology(3rd edition 2007).
Date and Time: 23 February 2017, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Chair: Professor Bryan W. Roberts
Speaker: Donald Mackenzie
Abstract
It is very tempting to think of today’s financial system as abstract and virtual, to imagine that globalisation has led to a “flat world” and “the end of geography”, and assume that both time and space have shrunk. MacKenzie’s talk will cast doubt on those assumptions by focusing on the physicality of finance.
He will discuss the “high-frequency trading” of US shares. HFT is automated, ultra-fast and typically involves very large numbers of trades. His focus will be on how HFT algorithms predict prices, and the main example given will be “futures lead”: algorithms’ use of data from the stock-index futures market to predict movements in the stock market. MacKenzie will show how “futures lead” was created and is held in place by the relationship between US financial regulation and the political system, and also how it takes material form in underground cables, microwave towers, and computer data centres (explaining, for example, why today’s automated trading is sometimes affected when it rains, or during summer sunrise and sunset over the Great Lakes).
Date and Time: 11 March 2013, 6:30 pm – 12 March 2013, 8:00 pm
Venue: TW1.G.01, Tower 1, Clement's Inn
Speaker: Prof. A.J. Simmons (University of Virginia)
Chair: Gabriel Wollner
Abstract
Modern states claim a wide variety of rights of control over particular geographical territories. These claims; however; are regularly disputed; often leading to violence. This fact makes practically pressing the questions; to be explored in these lectures; of how and to what extent such territorial claims by states can be justified.
A. John Simmons (Ph.D.; Cornell) is Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy; and professor of Law; editor; Philosophy and Public Affairs; Editorial Board member; Social Theory and Practice. He specialises in political philosophy; ethics; history of moral and political theory; and philosophy of law.
This event will be followed by a drinks reception in the Atrium; Old Building.