Prophet of Science
The Vision and Passion of Auguste Comte
Mary PickeringA fascinating portrait of Auguste Comte, nineteenth-century mathematician and philosopher
Born during the ferment of the French Revolution, Auguste Comte was one of the foremost thinkers of the nineteenth century, his ideas influencing social reformers, philosophers, politicians and scientists. Advocating for what he called ‘the science of society’, he contended that facts and reason alone should matter in public discourse. But while Comte strove to create social harmony, he suffered from repeated disasters in his personal and professional life that ultimately endangered his health and undermined his project. An avid self-dramatizer, Comte’s increasingly erratic behaviour stood at odds with his philosophy of ‘order and progress’.
This readable intellectual and personal biography of the enigmatic thinker explains Comte’s importance to modern Western thought, and provides a fascinating psychological portrait of a deeply troubled yet brilliant man.
A fascinating portrait of Auguste Comte, nineteenth-century mathematician and philosopher
Born during the ferment of the French Revolution, Auguste Comte was one of the foremost thinkers of the nineteenth century, his ideas influencing social reformers, philosophers, politicians and scientists. Advocating for what he called ‘the science of society’, he contended that facts and reason alone should matter in public discourse. But while Comte strove to create social harmony, he suffered from repeated disasters in his personal and professional life that ultimately endangered his health and undermined his project. An avid self-dramatizer, Comte’s increasingly erratic behaviour stood at odds with his philosophy of ‘order and progress’.
This readable intellectual and personal biography of the enigmatic thinker explains Comte’s importance to modern Western thought, and provides a fascinating psychological portrait of a deeply troubled yet brilliant man.
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Auguste Comte is one of the most influential, least appreciated and strangest modern philosophers. He invented sociology, decisively shaped philosophy of science and fired up nineteenth-century activists around the world. In this rich and engaging biography, the eminent expert Mary Pickering does justice to Comte’s fascinating life and work – and his attempts, both disastrous and surprisingly successful, to weave religion, emotion, fetishism and the sciences together for a global industrial society.
'John Tresch, The Warburg Institute, London, author of The Romantic Machine: Utopian Science and Technology after Napoleon
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Prophet of Science distills Mary Pickering’s lifelong engagement with Auguste Comte, one of the nineteenth century’s most daring and unsettling minds. At once incisive and deeply humane, it traces a life marked by revolutionary fervor, immense intellectual ambition, mental crisis, authoritarian dreams, and the creation of a secular “Religion of Humanity.” Comte emerges here as a passionate, conflicted figure rather than a dry system‑builder, and his ideas—formative across a wide range of emerging disciplines—appear richer and more complex than the doctrinaire schemes advanced by the many thinkers and writers who later sought to claim his legacy.
'Warren Breckman, University of Pennsylvania
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No one is better qualified than Mary Pickering to write a study of the life and ideas of Auguste Comte. Eschewing her subject’s own disregard for clarity, she has authored not only a lucid picture of Comte’s complex and troubled personality but also a compelling account of the science and dogma of positivism he struggled to construct. The intellectual and political environment in which this was done is brought vividly to life as is the massive influence Comte had in his own lifetime and subsequently. For all Comte’s many contradictions and paradoxes, Pickering shows that in our “post-truth” age a closer look at this neglected thinker is merited.
'Jeremy Jennings, King's College London
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Young Rebel in a Time of Upheaval
Chapter 2: Encounter with an Old Eccentric
Chapter 3: A Rocky Marriage and Shaky Start to a Career
Chapter 4: The Querulous Man
Chapter 5: Comte’s World View: The Dogma
Chapter 6: Famous Near-Disciples
Chapter 7: The Genius Meets His Muse
Chapter 8: The Salesman of a Movement, 1845–52
Chapter 9: The Saviour of Humanity
Conclusion
References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index
Mary Pickering is Professor of Modern European History at San Jose State University. She is the author of the three-volume Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography.