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Condorcet
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Condorcet was the last of the encyclopaedists : a "geometer" and fervent advocate of “public good”, he believed in the unlimited progress of the human mind and knowledge. Reason, which had served the natural sciences so well, had henceforth to serve the “moral sciences”, whose aim is human happiness. He was the first to propose and think out “social mathematics”. While the nineteenth century paid almost no heed to that, for half a century now he has gained academic renown as a forerunner of mathematics applied to the social sciences. The present article traces the evolution of his ideas – especially his early reluctance, which is shared by some people today. It ... looks at other less well-known aspects of his thought, such as the importance he attached to “the art of making tables” and the devising of an universal language which would enable every one to share scientific knowledge.
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Like many other philosophés, Condorcet was a member of the minor nobility. His father, an unsuccessful cavalry captain, was killed just five weeks after his birth. Condorcet was raised until age nine without any education by his now-twice widowed, pious mother. Then his uncle, a bishop, chose a tutor for him and later sent him to the Jesuit school in Rheims. In 1758, Condorcet was sent to the College de Navarre, part of the University of Paris where he studied subjects other than religion and Latin, where he fell in love with mathematics and where he decided to devote his life to the study of mathematics. By 1763, he met Lagrange and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, the latter eventually became Condorcet's patron.
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Condorcet took part in the opening debates of the French Revolution -- he was a member of the municipal council of Paris -- and he was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1791. As a prominent member of the Assembly, he directed a sustained effort toward the elaboration of a project for public education, an effort which by 1805, helped to establish the educational system of France. In the National Convention, Condorcet's opposition to the death penalty led him to cast his vote against the execution of Louis XVI in 1792/93 (as did Thomas Paine). He then undertook the task of drawing up a draft constitution for the new republic. His liberal constitutional scheme -- commonly known as the Girondin Constitution of 1793 -- suffered the same fate as the Girondins: expulsion and execution by the guillotine. In July 1793, his defense of his constitution against a constitution proposed by the Jacobins led to Condorcet's condemnation.
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Born in Saint-Quentin and educated at Navarre, Condorcet arrived in Paris in 1762. In 1765, Condorcet published his first work on mathematics. In 1769, he was elected to the prestigious Académie française. From 1773, he was appointed secretary of the Académe, and formed close relations with Voltaire, Diderot and Jacques Turgot.
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Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat (1743-1794), Marquis de Condorcet, was born at Ribemont, Picardy, France. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Reims and at the College of Navarre in Paris. At sixteen his mathematical abilities gained the praise of D’Alembert and Clairaut. A few years later he published a book on the integral calculus. He became a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1769. In 1785 he published a book on the calculus of probability and an important essay on the application of this to deciding the validity of majority decisions in various voting methods.
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Condorcet's main objective was not to explain the growth of reason itself -- the growth of reason was natural and did not require explanation. His real concern was to point to the destruction of the obstacles which had inhibited the growth of reason, or, those which had diverted the historical development of the mind from the natural logic of ideas. Condorcet's hope for the future rested on two things. First, he was convinced that the obstacles which in the past had threatened the advance and diffusion of knowledge were finally being destroyed under the impact of a scientific, technological and political revolution. These obstacles he enumerated as elitism, tyranny, prejudice, ignorance, and political corruption. Second, he believed that the discoveries of sensationalist psychology had made it possible to articulate the fundamental principles of social science.
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Condorcet