The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) is generally acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of sociology, and one of the most influential "grand theorists" of the nineteenth century. This edition of his early essays from the 1820s is based on a new translation, and aims to make his ideas and the development of his thought accessible to modern readers. A comprehensive introduction establishes the historical significance of Comte's work and shows how his ideas emerged from the rich intellectual turmoil of post-revolutionary France.
French philosopher Isidore Auguste Comte, known as the founder of positivism, also established sociology as a systematic study.
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte bettered the discipline and the doctrine. People sometimes regard him first of science in the modern sense of the term.
The utopian socialist Henri Saint-Simon strongly influenced Comte, who developed an attempt to remedy the malaise of the revolution and called for a new doctrine, based on the sciences. Comte influenced major 19th-century thought and the work of Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and George Eliot. His now outdated concept of evolutionism set the tone for early theorists and anthropologists, such as [authore:Harriet Martineau] and Herbert Spencer; Émile Durkheim presented modern academics as practical and objective research.
Theories of Comte culminated in the "Religion of Humanity," which influenced the development of secular organizations in the 19th century. Comte likewise coined the word altruism.