Auguste Comte and Positivism

This work by John Stuart Mill, republished in its updated 1866 second edition, explores the positivist viewpoints of the French philosopher and social scientist Auguste Comte. Positive theory, which holds that all knowledge must come from sensory experience, is credited to Comte as its creator. The two-part piece was first published in 1865 as two separate articles in the Westminster Review. Part 2 examines positivism's application in fields like religion and ethics, while Part 1 analyzes Comte's earlier writings on positivism in the scientific and social sciences. Comte, according to Mill, was the first philosopher to try to apply positivism "to all objects of human knowledge."