Isidore Auguste Marie Fran?ois Xavier Comte (19 January 1798  5 September 1857), better known as Auguste Comte, was a French philosopher. He was a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. He is sometimes regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Comte's social theories culminated in the 'Religion of Humanity', which influenced the development of religious humanist and secular humanist organizations in the 19th century.