Are you tired of reading about responses to Kant? Come with me just a little further before we turn the corner. Yet another reaction to the German professor came from Auguste Comte (1798-1857), a teacher of mathematics and profound thinker. His contribution is called "positivism." Until this generation, it was the most dominant worldview in the intellectual community of Western culture.

Comte wanted to reform society and the sciences, according to the following model. He believes that all knowledge begins with the theological stage of childhood, when we regard things as the expression of supernatural beings. Next we evolve to the metaphysical stage of youth, where abstract powers are substituted for personal beings. Finally we arrive at the positive stage of adulthood, where we abandon all concern for ultimate knowledge and center only on the phenomena (with Kant) we can experience, as it is understood scientifically.

If Comte is right (and many in the West believed him for a century), the only "truth" worth knowing is that which you can verify scientifically or logically. We'll see more of this worldview shortly.