Comtian

[ kom-tee-uhn, kawn- ]

adjective

1. Also Comtean. of or relating to the philosophy of Auguste Comte.

noun

1. a follower of the philosophy of Auguste Comte.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Comtian¹

1850–55; A. Comte + -ian

Example Sentences

There could be no better illustration, as Prof. Geddes has pointed out, of the Comtian thesis that science is a "social phenomenon."

From Project Gutenberg

But in the Comtian conception of social science, of which ethics and politics are the practical application, the knowledge of the laws of the evolution of society is of fundamental and continually increasing importance; humanity is regarded as having passed through a series of stages, in each of which a somewhat different set of laws and institutions, customs and habits, is normal and appropriate.

From Project Gutenberg

Today, Brazil's military organization is run by a bright, intellectual class of officers who are strongly influenced by the tenets of Comtian and Spencerian Positivism.*

From Time Magazine Archive

Occasionally he attacks the ‘Comtian theory,’ which, I think, is not now held by many people who study the history of man, and which I am not concerned to defend.

From Project Gutenberg

Powerful as was the influence of Hegel upon Proudhon, the Anarchist was but little affected by the fashionable philosophy of his contemporary and fellow-countryman, A. Comte; which is all the more remarkable since it is Comte's Positivism which, proceeding along the lines of Spencer's philosophy, has in no small degree influenced modern Anarchism, while echoes of the Comtian individualist doctrine are even to be found in the German contemporary of Proudhon, Stirner; echoes which, although numerous, are perhaps unconscious.

From Project Gutenberg