Why was Auguste Comte skeptical of introspection in psychology?

Auguste Comte, the originator of positivism, was skeptical of introspection because he believed it was fundamentally flawed as a scientific method. He argued that the very act of attending to one’s own mental states would inevitably alter and distort those states, rendering them unsuitable for objective study.1

Consistent with his broader commitment to the scientific method, Comte insisted that genuine knowledge must be derived from empirical observation of external facts and the formulation of descriptive laws. Because he viewed psychology as a field that should be integrated into biology—specifically brain neurophysiology—and sociology, he rejected subjective methods in favor of objective observation. His stance anticipated the methodology of 20th-century behaviourism, which similarly prioritizes observable data over internal, unverifiable mental processes.1