The Maison Auguste Comte is one of those quintessential Paris institutions: a house museum. House museums are sometimes shrines to the buildings they’re set in, such as the Belle Epoque Musée Jacquemart-André or the Ancien Régime-style Musée Nissim de Camondo. Others are odes to the famous people who lived and worked there: from painters like Eugène Delacroix to writers like Honoré de Balzac, from scientists like Marie Curie to politicians like Georges Clemenceau. But the Maison d’Auguste Comte is one of the only museums devoted to a philosopher.
Auguste François Xavier Comte was an 18th-19th-century French writer responsible for founding the principle of positivism. Though I won’t pretend to be an expert in – nor a fan of – positivism, the concept accepts as true and knowable only that which can be observed and proven. Given positivism’s alignment with the scientific method, Comte is often regarded as a founding philosopher of science- even if his ideas were taken up in harmful ways. Though positivism’s literal approach and claims to objectivity have led to significant and worthy critique, he was an important post-Enlightenment thinker. Comte spent the final years of his life, from 1841 to 1857, in a set of rooms at 10 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, near Place de l’Odéon in the 6th arrondissement. His house museum is modest but faithful to the period, with dark wood bookcases, green silk armchairs, and pamphlets and pictures related to Comte’s life.
The museum is only open on Tuesdays from 6-9pm and Wednesdays from 2-5pm, so make sure to plan ahead. If you’re a student of the history and philosophy of science, the museum will hold more intrigue for you than most. However, I believe all house museums offer us a slice of history and a deeper understanding of the city (and how tiny beds used to be).
The museum is located on the edges of the university district and the verge of the Luxembourg gardens. Combine your visit with a coffee at Le Hibou and a stroll through the gardens, and perhaps imagine being there 170 years earlier, pondering whether knowledge is only that which we can observe.
The Musées de Paris museum map of Paris
La Maison d’Auguste Comte , 10 rue Monsieur-le-Prince, 75006 Paris, métro: Odeon (lines 4 and 10)
Full rate : 4 euros, 2 for students
Opening hours: only Tuesday 6-9pm and Wednesday 2-5pm
Not wheelchair accessible (stairs to museum entrance)
Les Musées de Paris 