Auguste Comte Summary

Comte, Auguste COMTE, AUGUSTE (1798–1857), French philosopher, founder of positivism. Born into a Roman Catholic, royalist family in Montpellier, France, Comte completed his early education by ... Read more

Comte, Auguste(1798–1857) Auguste Comte was a French positivist philosopher. Positivism may be viewed as either a philosophical system and method or as a philosophy of history. In the latter as... Read more

The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) developed a system of positive philosophy. He held that science and history culminate in a new science of humanity, to which he gave the name "sociolog... Read more

In the following review, Brewster outlines a "sketch of the objects and methods of positive knowledge," focusing especially on Comte's theism and cosmology The competitors for ... Read more

In the following essay, Kremer-Marietti chronicles the relationship between Comte and Mill, documenting possible mutual influences. On November 8, 1841, when John Stuart Mill (1806-1872) first wrot... Read more

In the following essay, Lewes considers Comte's Law of Three States and his class system. Guided by his logical principles of the general extension of the Positive Method to the rational stu... Read more

In the following essay, Levy-Bruhl contrasts Comte's philosophy with the metaphysics that preceded it. At the end of the Cours de philosophie positive Comte has himself summed up the results... Read more

In the following essay, Gilson considers Comte's sociologism to be "one of the most striking philosophical experiments recorded by history." On the third day of the month of Da... Read more

In the following essay, Standley discusses the paradoxical legacy of Comte and his philosophy. The space of more than a century between us and Comte has done little to clarify his image. Now, the p... Read more