Concept

Positivist calendar

Overview

The positivist calendar was an attempt at calendar reform put forward by Auguste Comte in 1849 that used 13 months of 28 days rather than the Gregorian Calendar's 12 months of 30/31 days in adherence with his scientific study of society, Positivism. The calendar was a revision of the earlier eternal calendar developed by Marco Mastrofini, which also used 13 months of 28 days, and, like the positivist calendar, included a 365th day that didn't fall into any month. Mastrofini himself revised earlier concepts from Hugh Jones, who published under the pen name of "Hirossa Ap-Iccim", the Georgian Calendar, a year made of 13 months of 28 days, named after George II, though it lacked a 365th day, making it 364 days.In the positivist calendar the last day of the year was designated as a festival day to commemorate the dead.

This extra day added to the last month was outside the days of the week cycle, and so the first of a month was always a Monday. On leap years, an additional festival day (also outside the week cycle), to celebrate pariahs and outcasts, would join the memorial day of the dead. The scheme followed the Gregorian calendar rules for determining which years are leap years, and started on January 1. Year 1 "of the Great Crisis" (i.e. the French Revolution) was equivalent to 1789 in the standard Gregorian system.

Much like Comte's other ideas, the positivist calendar never saw widespread use.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

And God lighted a fire in the second orbit from the earth which is called the sun, to give light over the whole heaven, and to teach intelligent beings that knowledge of number which is derived from the revolution of the same. Thus arose day and night, which are the periods of the most intelligent nature; a month is created by the revolution of the moon, a year by that of the sun. Other periods of wonderful length…
Plato, Timaeus
States what Positivist calendar is; the author is tied to Positivist calendar in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
As in the ordinary day, morning is the beginning, and evening the close of day, so, their knowledge of the primordial being of things is called morning knowledge; and this is according as things exist in the Word. But their knowledge of the very being of the thing created, as it stands in its own nature, is termed evening knowledge; because the being of things flows from the Word, as from a kind of primordial…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
States what Positivist calendar is; the author is tied to Positivist calendar in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
There are yet, besides those, other words of time, that ordinarily are thought to stand for positive ideas, which yet will, when considered, be found to be relative; such as are, young, old, &c., which include and intimate the relation anything has to a certain length of duration, whereof we have the idea in our minds. Thus, having settled in our thoughts the idea of the ordinary duration of a man to be seventy…
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1
States what Positivist calendar is; the author is tied to Positivist calendar in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Philosophers who discussed Positivist calendar

Auguste Comte

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Christianity

Place in the tradition

Part of Positivism.

Explore Positivist calendar in the interactive graph →