65. Auguste Comte and Positivism

As one of the first voices in the 19th century to despair of any notion of transcendent reality, Auguste Comte argued that we live in a world of particulars without universals. He called his attempt to build a coherent worldview from this perspective, "Positivism," an outlook that profoundly shaped much of subsequent thought, especially among those who claim to take a purely 'scientific' approach to knowledge. This lecture briefly explores Comte's contribution to 19th century philosophy.