Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) was a French philosopher, the founder of positivism and of sociology as a discipline. Born in Montpellier, he studied at the École Polytechnique and worked for a time as secretary to Henri de Saint-Simon. In his Course of Positive Philosophy he argued that knowledge passes through theological, metaphysical and positive or scientific stages, and he arranged the sciences in a hierarchy crowned by the study of society. Later he founded a Religion of Humanity with its own calendar and rituals. His ideas influenced John Stuart Mill and thinkers across Europe and Latin America.