Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was a French philosopher, regarded as the founder of sociology, a term he coined 1830.

Short Biography:

He sought to establish sociology as an intellectual discipline, using a scientific approach, "positivism", as the basis of a new science of social order and social development.

Comte, born in Montpellier, was expelled from the Paris Ecole Polytechnique for leading a student revolt in 1816.

In 1818 he became secretary to the socialist Saint-Simon and was much influenced by him. He began lecturing on the "Positive Philosophy" in 1826, but almost immediately succumbed to a nervous disorder and once tried to commit suicide in the Seine. On his recovery he resumed his lectures and mathematical teaching.

In his six-volume Cours de philosophic p ositive 1830-1842 he argued that human thought and social development evolve through three stages: the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive or scientific.

Though he originally sought to proclaim society's evolution to a new golden age of science, industry, and rational morality, his radical ideas were increasingly tempered by the political and social upheavals of his time.

Why is Auguste Comte famous?

Auguste Comte was a French philosopher, a founder of the doctrine of positivism.

Auguste Comte Lists

	1798 births
	1857 deaths
	People from Montpellier
	19th-century philosophers
	French agnostics
	French philosophers
	French sociologists
	Alumni of the École Polytechnique
	Saint-Simonists
	Philosophers of science
	Theories of history
	Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
	Positivism

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Tags: founder, sociology, discipline, positivism, development, doctrine

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Category: Philosophers  - ( Philosophers Archive)

Date Added: 08 December '11

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