<b>A General View of Positivism </b>(<i>Discours sur l&#39;ensemble du positivisme</i>) is a 1844 book by the French philosopher <b>Auguste Comte</b>, first published in English in 1865. A founding text in the development of positivism and the discipline of sociology, the work provides a revised and full account of the theory Comte presented earlier in his multi-part The Course in Positive Philosophy (1830&ndash;1842). Comte outlines the epistemological view of positivism, provides an account of the manner by which sociology should be performed, and describes his law of three stages.<br /><br /><b>Isidore Marie Auguste Fran&ccedil;ois Xavier Comte</b>&nbsp;(19 January 1798 &ndash; 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher, mathematician 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&#39;s ideas were also fundamental to the development of sociology; indeed, he invented the term and treated that discipline as the crowning achievement of the sciences.<br /><br />Translated by <b>J. H. Bridges</b>.