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Pierre Laffitte

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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PIERRE LAFFITTE (1823-1903), French Positivist, was born on the 21st of February 1823 at Beguey (Gironde). Residing at Paris as a teacher of mathematics, he became a disciple of Comte, 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 adhering to Littre, who rejected the religion of humanity as inconsistent with the materialism 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'humanite (1875) and Cours de philosophic premiere (1889). In 1893 he was appointed to the new chair founded at the College de France for the exposition of the general history of science, and it was largely due to his inspiration that a statue to Comte was erected in the Place de la Sorbonne in 1902. He died on the 4th of January 1903.