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For most of the twentieth century, Auguste Comte, a controversial but highly influential nineteenth-century figure, and his vast treatises on positive philosophy, politics and religion were disregarded and largely ignored. More recently, however, Comte's life and writings have been reexamined together with the project of social reform to which his intellectual labors were devoted, producing a much more complicated picture of his thought and its significance. The Anthem Companion to Auguste Comte―with ten new critical essays by leading Comte scholars, sociologists, intellectual historians, social theorists and philosophers―aims to further this reexamination while also providing a multifaceted introduction to Comte's thought and to current discussion about him. The essays also examine Comte's relation to a multiplicity of other thinkers, and his place more generally in the formation and legacy of modern Western thought

A collection of new essays on Auguste Comte by leading Comte scholars, social theorists, philosophers and intellectual historians. The collection aims to further the critical re-examination of Auguste Comte, an important but long neglected figure, while also providing a multi-faceted introduction to key aspects of his thought, its genesis and its place in the modern Western tradition.

For most of the twentieth century, Auguste Comte, a controversial but highly influential nineteenth-century figure, and his vast treatises on positive philosophy, politics and religion were disregarded and largely ignored. More recently, however, Comte's life and writings have been reexamined together with the project of social reform to which his intellectual labors were devoted, producing a much more complicated picture of his thought and its significance. The Anthem Companion to Auguste Comte—with ten new critical essays by leading Comte scholars, sociologists, intellectual historians, social theorists and philosophers—aims to further this reexamination while also providing a multifaceted introduction to Comte's thought and to current discussion about him. The essays also examine Comte's relation to a multiplicity of other thinkers, and his place more generally in the formation and legacy of modern Western thought.

This 2001 book offers an exciting reinterpretation of Auguste Comte, the founder of French sociology. Following the development of his philosophy of positivism, Comte later focused on the importance of the emotions in his philosophy resulting in the creation of a new religious system, the Religion of Humanity. Andrew Wernick provides the first in-depth critique of Comte's concept of religion and its place in his thinking on politics, sociology and philosophy of science. He places Comte's ideas in the context of post-1789 French political and intellectual history, and of modern philosophy, especially postmodernism. Wernick relates Comte to Marx and Nietzsche as seminal figures of modernity and examines key features of modern and postmodern French social theory, tracing the inherent flaws and disintegration of Comte's system. Wernick offers original and fascinating insights in this rich study which will attract a wide audience from sociologists and philosophers to cultural theorists and historians