Skip to main content

Auguste Comte and Positivism

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

Auguste Comte coined the term sociology in 1838 and argued society could be studied with the methods used on the physical world — a position called positivism.

Show

A researcher today testing whether a policy works by measuring outcomes, not by argument alone, is applying Comte's premise.

Watch for

Comte coined the term; he did not do sociology's first empirical research.