 There are now at least twelve distinct epistemologies that are referred to as positivism.Auguste Comte (1798–1857) first described the epistemological perspective of positivism in "The Course in Positive Philosophy", a series of texts published between 1830 and 1842.These texts were followed by the 1844 work, "A General View of Positivism" (published in French 1848, English in 1865).