A General View of Positivism

A General View of Positivism is a book by Auguste Comte, first published in 1848, that presents a concise account of the philosophical system he called positivism. Comte lays out a programme for subordinating metaphysical speculation to empirical science, arguing that knowledge of society should be built on observation and the methods of the natural sciences.

Written in the mid-19th century, the work seeks to unite intellectual inquiry with moral and social renewal, addressing how scientific ideas might be applied to social order, political reform and the organisation of human life. Comte’s argument has been enormously influential in the history of social thought: the book helped establish sociology as a distinct discipline, popularised the “law of three stages” of human intellectual development, and inspired later debates about the role of science in public life.

Read with a critical eye, it rewards those interested in 19th-century philosophy, the foundations of social science, and the historical tensions between faith, metaphysics and empirically grounded knowledge. This translation by J. H. Bridges was originally published in 1907.