Hierarchy of the sciences

Short description: Hierarchical categorisation of different fields of science

Not to be confused with Hard and soft science.

The scale of the Universe mapped to branches of science and showing how one system is built atop the next through the hierarchy of the sciences

The hierarchy of the sciences is a theory formulated[where?] by Auguste Comte in the 19th century. This theory states that science develops over time beginning with the simplest and most general scientific discipline, astronomy, which is the first to reach the "positive stage" (one of three in Comte's law of three stages). As one moves up the "hierarchy", this theory further states that sciences become more complex and less general, and that they will reach the positive stage later. Disciplines further up the hierarchy are said to depend more on the developments of their predecessors; the highest discipline on the hierarchy are the social sciences.[1][2] According to this theory, there are higher levels of consensus and faster rates of advancement in physics and other natural sciences than there are in the social sciences.[3]

File:Hierarchy of the Sciences - diagram.svgHierarchy of the Sciences by Auguste Comte

## Contents

* 1 Evidence
* 2 Criticism
* 3 See also
* 4 References

## Evidence

Research has shown that, after controlling for the number of hypotheses being tested, positive results are 2.3 times more likely in the social sciences than in the physical sciences.[4] It has also been found that the degree of scientific consensus is highest in the physical sciences, lowest in the social sciences, and intermediate in the biological sciences.[5] Dean Simonton argues that a composite measure of the scientific status of disciplines ranks psychology much closer to biology than to sociology.[6]

## Criticism

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, Nobel laureate in Physics for his works on polymer physics and soft matter, criticized Comte's positivism in 1994, pointing it as the source of content for chemistry and other practical scientists among French scientists.[7]

## See also

* Unity of science

## References

1. ↑ "Comte - The Work - Hierarchy of the Sciences". http://media.pfeiffer.edu/lridener/DSS/Comte/COMTEW4.HTML.
2. ↑ Bourdeau, Michel (2018-05-08). "Auguste Comte". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/comte.
3. ↑ Cole, Stephen (July 1983). "The Hierarchy of the Sciences?" (in en). American Journal of Sociology 89 (1): 111–139. doi:10.1086/227835. ISSN 0002-9602.
4. ↑ Fanelli, Daniele (2010-04-07). ""Positive" Results Increase Down the Hierarchy of the Sciences" (in en). PLOS ONE 5 (4). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010068. PMID 20383332. Bibcode: 2010PLoSO...510068F.
5. ↑ Fanelli, Daniele; Glänzel, Wolfgang (2013-06-26). "Bibliometric Evidence for a Hierarchy of the Sciences" (in en). PLOS ONE 8 (6). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066938. PMID 23840557. Bibcode: 2013PLoSO...866938F.
6. ↑ Simonton, Dean Keith (2004). "Psychology's Status as a Scientific Discipline: Its Empirical Placement Within an Implicit Hierarchy of the Sciences." (in en). Review of General Psychology 8 (1): 59–67. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.8.1.59.
7. ↑ Laeuffer, Jacques (1997), Driessen, Alfred; Suarez, Antoine, eds., "Scientism and Scientific Knowledge of Things and God" (in en), Mathematical Undecidability, Quantum Nonlocality and the Question of the Existence of God (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands): pp. 185–191, doi:10.1007/978-94-011-5428-4_12, ISBN 978-94-011-5428-4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5428-4_12, retrieved 2025-11-28

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