A conceptual analysis of how science, religion, and culture interact and influence each other in polities

Abstract

One of the nineteenth century’s leading sociologists, Auguste Comte (1798–1857) argued that all political communities—irrespective of geography, race, or ideological inclinations—in their efforts to make sense of the world, pass through similar developmental and evolutionary stages: the religious stage is usually the first, and is followed by the metaphysical stage and later ends in the scientific stage. Weaving from Comte’s paradigms, this paper aims to demonstrate the utility of the interactions among the three study areas of science, religion and culture and the influence that each one of them yields over the others in polity governance.