Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

Auguste Comte was a French philosopher, the founder of positivism and one of the first to use the term sociology, which replaced what he had originally called physique sociale, or social physics. He believed that society could be treated as an empirical object and studied scientifically. Comte also saw sociology at the top of a hierarchy of sciences, each of which integrated the next.

Positivism and sociology each became very influential concepts in 19th-century thought, the former gaining popularity as an analytic methodology and school of philosophy, and the latter becoming an academic discipline as presented by Émile Durkheim. Comte was also a proponent of social evolutionism who set the tone for thinkers like Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer.