Pierre Laffitte (21 February 1823 – 4 January 1903) was a French positivist philosopher. Laffitte was born at

Béguey Béguey (; ) is a Communes of France, commune on the right bank of the Garonne river in the Gironde Departments of France, department in southwestern France. Geography Bordering municipalities On the right bank of the Garonne, the neighbor ...

Gironde Gironde ( , US usually , ; , ) is the largest department in the southwestern French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Named after the Gironde estuary, a major waterway, its prefecture is Bordeaux. In 2019, it had a population of 1,623,749.

. Residing at Paris as a teacher of

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

, he became a disciple of

Auguste Comte Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (; ; 19 January 1798 – 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 ...

, who appointed him his literary executor. On the schism of the Positivist body which followed Comte's death, he was recognized as head of the section which accepted the full Comtian doctrine; the other section adhered to

Émile Littré Émile Maximilien Paul Littré (; 1 February 18012 June 1881) was a French lexicographer, freemason and philosopher, best known for his , commonly called . Biography Littré was born in Paris. His father, Michel-François Littré, had been a gu ...

, who rejected the religion of humanity as inconsistent with the philosophy of science of Comte's earlier period. From 1853 Laffitte delivered Positivist lectures in the room formerly occupied by Comte in the rue Monsieur le Prince. He published ''Les Grands Types de l'humanité'' (1875) and ''Cours de philosophie première'' (1889). In 1893 he was appointed to the new chair founded at the

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

for the exposition of the general

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...

, and it was largely due to his inspiration that a statue to Comte was erected in the Place de la Sorbonne in 1902. Laffitte died in Paris. Lafitte with a delegation of positivists visited Constantinople in 1877 visited Midhat Pasha to advocate positivist principles as a non-Christian, modern system.

References

* *M. S. Ozervarli: ''Positivism in the Late Ottoman Empire, The Young Turks as Mediators'', Johannes Feichtinger et al,: ''The Worlds of Positivism: a Global Intellectual History, 1770-1930'' Palgrave MacMillan, 2018 {{DEFAULTSORT:Laffitte, Pierre 1823 births 1903 deaths People from Gironde 19th-century French philosophers 19th-century French historians Academic staff of the Collège de France Comtism Members of the Ligue de la patrie française Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery