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Auguste Comte Birth
Auguste Comte was a French philosopher of science born in Montpellier in January of 1798. He was admitted into École Polytechnique in Paris in 1814. Comte is considered to be the first philosopher of science in a modern sense, and the founder of positivism. He provided philosophical works in math, chemistry, biology, and physics. -
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The Beginning (1817-1824)
Comte met Henri de Saint-Simon in 1817 who he worked for as a secretary. Comte gained public recognition early on in his life as he spent these years collaborating with Saint-Simon to publish many pamphlets and magazines. Comte took three ideas from his time with Saint-Simon to include the contrast between organic and critical periods in history, ideas on industrial society, and the idea of spiritual power. In 1824 Comte left Saint-Simon to strike out on his own. -
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"Course on Positive Philosophy" (1830-1842)
One of Auguste Comte’s most important works was the six volume text titled “Course on Positive Philosophy”. This was a series of texts that were written between the years of 1830 and 1842. The first three volumes cover five fundamental sciences and, the latter three delve into social sciences. In this work Comte also described his law of three stages below is a video that goes into more depth and describes the laws.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmoNjmWt2Ws -
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"System of Positive Polity" (1851-1854)
Comte’s second major work was “System of Positive Polity” and brought forth the theory of “complete positivism.” While his first work covering Positivism is considered to be a transformation from science to philosophy his second work (that covers “complete positivism”) is the transformation from religion to philosophy. -
Auguste Comte Death
Comte died in 1857 leaving many works unpublished and incomplete. Some of these works include: “Treatise of Universal Education” and “System of Positive Industry”. He was buried at Père-Lachaise cemetery and in 1983 a statue was made in his honor. Bourdeau, Michel, "Auguste Comte", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/comte/.