The Life of Auguste Comte ( Jan 19, 1798 - Sept 5, 1857) - Carmen Hill

By Carmen Hill
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    The Beginning

    Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte was born in Montpellier, France on January 19, 1798. Comte's parents were royalists and Roman Catholics, but others were republicans and skeptical after the French Revolution. Comte decided to leave Roman Catholicism and royalism entirely. In 1814, he entered École Polytechnique, a military school that became a general school. The school closed temporarily in 1816 ,at this time, Comte took permanent residence in Paris.
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    "System of Positive Philosophy" and his theories of sociology

    In 1822, with the help of his friend, Comte combined the Latin term for companion/ associate and the Greek term for speak of /speech to create sociology. In 1826, Comte started a series of lectures on his "system of positive philosophy" but he suffered a serious panic attack. Later on, he made a complete recovery and began his lectures again in either 1828 or 1829. They were successful, to the point of presenting them in the Royal Athenaeum in 1830.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmoNjmWt2Ws
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    The following 12 years

    After his successful presentation, he wrote a size-volume series called the "Course of Positive Philosophy." In it, he explained that society had its own rules, like the physical world. Comte decided to study society and establish a theory of sociology. According to the Britannica "From 1832 to 1842 Comte was a tutor and then an examiner at the revived École Polytechnique." After a heated dispute with the directors, he was fired and lost his income.
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    "System of Positive Polity" and his death

    After the death of Clotilde, he composed his major work called the "System of Positive Polity," in which he stated the formulation of sociology. The complete work explained "morality and moral progress as the central preoccupation of human knowledge and effort and gave an account of the polity, or political organization, that this required." as said in the Britannica. Three years after it was published, he died in Paris from stomach cancer.