Auguste Comte

  • Birth

  • Period: to

    Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte

    Comte was a French philosopher, mathematician and social scientist. Comte is widely known as the originator of positivism, to believe the natural rather than the supernatural.
  • Enrolled into Ecole Polytechnique (school)

  • Ecole Polytechnique close, Comte went on to study at the medical school in Montpellier

  • Migrated from Montpellier to Paris, France

  • Becomes a secretary and collaborator for social theorist Henri de Saint-Simon

  • Comte's partnership with Henri de Saint-Simon ends

  • Married his partner Caroline Massin

  • Began delivering lectures as part of a course of 'positive philosophy'.

  • Admitted to a mental health hospital in, but Comte left without being cured.

  • Comte attempts suicide by jumping off the Pont des Arts

  • Comte resumed courses on positive philosophy

  • published the start of his major works in the volumes of “Course in Positive Philosophy”

  • he taught analysis and mechanics at the 'Ecole Polytechnique'

  • Comte lost his job at the 'Ecole Polytechnique, due to clash with the administrators of the institute

  • divorced his partner, Caroline Massin

  • Comte published his book on mathematics titled “Elementary Treatise on Analytic Geometry.”

  • Comte began a platonic relationship with Clotilde de Vaux being 17 years her senior

  • Completed his books, “Philosophical Treatise on Popular Astronomy” and “Discourse on the Positive Spirit”

  • Clotilde de Vaux passes away

  • Comte began to publish volumes of “System of Positive Polity - A Treatise of Sociology, Instituting the Religion of Humanity”, in which he expressed his unique view on democracy

  • Auguste Comte passes away due to stomach cancer

  • Auguste Comte is laid to rest in the Perte Lachaise Cemetry, Paris.

  • His apartment, where he lived from 1841 until his death in 1857, has been preserved as the 'Maison d’Auguste Comte,' which is a private museum as well as a philosophical research centre.