Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Comte's ideas were fundamental to the development of sociology, as he coined the term and treated the discipline as the crowning achievement of the sciences. January 19, 1798 – 1857; died at about 58. Alive at the same time as Abraham Lincoln, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Darwin, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Karl Marx. Wiki link