Editing Auguste Comte (section)

===Auguste Comte and reflexivity===
Beyond Comte's substantive theoretical corpus, a less well-known yet interesting aspect of his work is his reflections upon the relation between self and knowledge production. Comte was troubled by the problem of how an individual that is the product of actually existing society could produce science aimed at transforming said society, and speaks in ''Positive Polity''<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Comte |first=Auguste |title=Positive Polity |publisher=Spottiswoode and Co. |year=1975 |location=London |page=xxxvi}}</ref> of a process of self-transformation aimed at improving himself as a knowledge producer. As the methodologist Audrey Alejandro has elaborated,<ref name=":2" /> these considerations by Comte foreshadow key concerns in contemporary social science regarding the importance of ''reflexivity'', meaning by this the necessity to be critically aware and to assess the ways personal dispositions and unconscious discourses shape the production of knowledge.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Finlay |first=Linda |date=August 2002 |title=Negotiating the swamp: the opportunity and challenge of reflexivity in research practice |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/146879410200200205 |journal=Qualitative Research |language=en |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=209–230 |doi=10.1177/146879410200200205 |s2cid=145242927 |issn=1468-7941}}</ref> Moving forward, Alejandro has seen in Comte a foundation to develop a reflexive discourse analysis (RDA) framework, so as to provide social scientists with applicable tools from discourse analysis for the task of implementing reflexivity in practice.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Alejandro |first=Audrey |date=March 2021 |title=Reflexive discourse analysis: A methodology for the practice of reflexivity |journal=European Journal of International Relations |language=en |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=150–174 |doi=10.1177/1354066120969789 |s2cid=229461433 |issn=1354-0661|doi-access=free }}</ref>