Auguste Comte: Volume 2

Mary Pickering is Professor of History at San Jose State University. The author of Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography, Volumes I, II, and III, she has published in Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal of Women's History, Historical Reflections, Revue philosophique, and Revue international de philosophie.

• Introduction; 1. 1843–1844: the battle against the pedantocracy; 2. Tensions in Comte's relationships, 1842–1846; 3. Clotilde de Vaux and the initial encounter with Comte; 4. The muse's tragic end; 5. Pain and recognition; 6. The revolution of 1848; 7. Discours sur l'ensemble du positivisme; 8. Personal and professional disappointments; 9. The early development of the Religion of Humanity; 10. The development of the Positivist Movement; Concluding remarks.

'Mary Pickering has now completed what has to be regarded as one of the great biographies of a major nineteenth-century French thinker. What is most obviously impressive about this work is its thoroughness, its mastery of the details of Comte's life and thought. It is clearly the result of a prodigious effort of research. Hardly less impressive are the depth, the coherence, and the originality of the picture of Auguste Comte that emerges from this biography.' Jonathan Beecher, University of California, Santa Cruz