Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de
Condorcet (17 September 1743 – 28 March 1794), known as
Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French
philosopher,
mathematician, and early
political scientist who devised the
concept of a
Condorcet
method. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he advocated a
liberal economy, free and equal
public education,
constitutionalism, and
equal rights for women and people of all
races. His ideas and writings were said to embody the ideals of the
Age of Enlightenment and
rationalism, and remain influential to
this day. He died a mysterious death in prison after a period of
being a fugitive from French Revolutionary authorities.
Early life
Condorcet
was born in Ribemont
, Aisne
, and
descended from the ancient family of Caritat, who took their title
from the town of Condorcet
in Dauphiné, of which
they were long-time residents. Fatherless at a young age, he
was raised by his devoutly religious mother.
He was educated at the
Jesuit College in Reims
and at the
Collège de Navarre
in Paris, where he quickly showed his intellectual ability, and
gained his first public distinctions in mathematics. When he was sixteen, his
analytical abilities gained the praise of
Jean le Rond d'Alembert and
Alexis Clairault; soon, Condorcet would
study under d'Alembert.
From 1765 to 1774, he focused on science. In 1765, he published his
first work on mathematics entitled
Essai sur le calcul
intégral, which was very well received, launching his career
as a respected mathematician. He would go on to publish many more
papers, and on 25 February 1769, he was elected to the
Académie royale des Sciences
(French Royal Academy of Sciences).
Jacques Turgot was Condorcet's mentor
and longtime friend
In 1772, he published another paper on
integral calculus which was widely hailed
as a groundbreaking paper in several domains. Soon after, he met
Jacques Turgot, a French economist,
and the two became friends. Turgot was to be an administrator under
King Louis XV in 1772, and became
Controller-General of
Finance under
Louis XVI in
1774.
Condorcet was recognized worldwide and worked with such famous
scientists as
Leonhard Euler and
Benjamin Franklin.
He soon became an
honorary member of many foreign academies and philosophic societies
notably the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences (1785), in Germany, Imperial Russia
, and the United States.
Early political career
In 1774,
Condorcet was appointed Inspector
General of the Monnaie de Paris
by Turgot. From this point on,
Condorcet shifted his focus from the purely mathematical to
philosophy and political matters. In the following years, he took
upthe defense of
human rights in
general, and of
women's and
Blacks' rights in particular (an
abolitionist, he became active in the
Society of the Friends of
the Blacks in the 1780s). He supported the ideals embodied by
the newly formed United States, and proposed projects of political,
administrative and economic reforms intended to transform
France.
In 1776, Turgot was dismissed as Controller General. Consequently,
Condorcet submitted his resignation as Inspector General of the
Monnaie, but the request was refused, and he continued
serving in this post until 1791. Condorcet later wrote
Vie de
M. Turgot (1786), a
biography which spoke fondly of Turgot and
advocated Turgot's economic theories. Condorcet continued to
receive prestigious appointments: in 1777, he became Permanent
Secretary of the
Académie des
Sciences, holding the post until the abolition of the Académie
in 1793, and in 1782 secretary of the
Académie Française.
Condorcet's paradox
In 1785, Condorcet wrote the
Essay on the Application of
Analysis to the Probability of Majority Decisions, one of his
most important works. This work described several now famous
results, including
Condorcet's
jury theorem, which states that if each member of a voting
group is more likely than not to make a correct decision, the
probability that the highest vote of the group is the correct
decision increases as the number of members of the group increases,
and
Condorcet's paradox, which shows
that majority preferences become
intransitive with three or more options—it is
possible for a majority to prefer A over B, another majority to
prefer B over C, and another majority to prefer C over A, all from
the sameelectorate and same set of
ballots.
The paper also outlines a generic
Condorcet method, designed to simulate
pair-wise elections between all candidates in an
election. He disagreed strongly with the
alternative method of aggregating preferences put forth by
Jean-Charles de Borda (based on
summed rankings of alternatives).
Condorcet was one of the first to systematically apply mathematics
in the
social sciences.
Other works
In 1786, Condorcet worked on ideas for the
differential and
integral calculus, giving a new treatment
of
infinitesimals - a work which was
never printed. In 1789, he published
Vie de Voltaire
(1789), which agreed with
Voltaire in
his opposition to the
Church.
In 1798,
Thomas Malthus wrote an
An Essay on
the Principle of Population partly in response to
Condorcet's views on the "
perfectibility
of society". In 1781, Condorcet wrote a pamphlet,
Reflections on Negro Slavery, in which he denounced
slavery.
French Revolution
Deputy
Condorcet took a leading role when the
French Revolution swept France in 1789,
hoping for a
rationalist reconstruction
of society, and championed many
liberal
causes. As a result, in 1791 he was elected as a Paris
representative in the
Assemblée, and then became the
secretary of the Assembly. The institution adopted Condorcet's
design for state education system, and he drafted a proposed
Bourbon Constitution for the
new France. He advocated
women's
suffrage for the new government, writing an article for
Journal de la Société de 1789, and by publishing
De
l'admission des femmes au droit de cité ("For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For
Women")in 1790.
There were two competing views on which direction France should go,
embodied by two political parties: the moderate
Girondists, and the more radical
Montagnards, led by
Maximilien Robespierre, who favored
purging France of its
royal past
(
Ancien Régime).
Condorcet was quite independent, but still counted many friends in
the Girondist party. He presided over the Assembly as the Girondist
held the majority, until it was replaced by the
National Convention, elected in order to
design a new constitution. He lead the Constitution Committee which
drafted the
Girondin
constitutional project. The constitution was ordered to be
printed, but was not put to votes. When the Montagnards gained
control of the Convention, they wrote their own, the
French Constitution of
1793.
At the time of
King Louis XVI's
trial, the Girondists had, however, lost their majority in the
Convention. Condorcet, who opposed the
death penalty but still supported the
trial itself, spoke out against the execution of the King during
the public vote at the Convention. From that moment on, he was
usually considered a Girondist. The Montagnards were becoming more
and more influential in the Convention as the King's "betrayal" was
confirming their theories. One of them,
Marie-Jean Hérault de
Seychelles, a member, like Condorcet, of the Constitution's
Commission, misrepresented many ideas from Condorcet's draft and
presented what was called a
Montagnard Constitution.
Condorcet criticized the new work, and as a result, he was branded
a
traitor. On October the 3rd, 1793, a
warrant was issued for Condorcet's
arrest.
Arrest and death
The warrant forced Condorcet into hiding. He hid for five (or
eight) months in the house of Mme. Vernet, on Rue Servandoni, in
Paris. It was there that he wrote
Esquisse d'un tableau
historique des progrès de l'esprit humain (English
translation:
Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of
the Human Spirit), which was published posthumously in 1795
and is considered one of the major texts of the Enlightenment and
of historical thought. It narrates the history of civilization as
one of progress in the sciences, shows the intimate connection
between
scientific progress and
the development of human rights and justice, and outlines the
features of a future rational society entirely shaped by scientific
knowledge.
On 25 March 1794 Condorcet, convinced he was no longer safe, left
his hideout and attempted to flee Paris. Two days later he was
arrested in
Clamart and imprisoned in the
Bourg-la-Reine (or, as it was known
during the Revolution,
Bourg-l'Égalité, "Equality Borough"
rather than "Queen's Borough"). Two days after that, he was found
dead in his cell. The most widely accepted theory is that his
friend,
Pierre Jean George
Cabanis, gave him a poison which he eventually used. However,
some historians believe that he may have been murdered (perhaps
because he was too loved and respected to be executed).
Condorcet
was interred in the Panthéon
in 1989, in honor of the bicentennial of the French
Revolution and Condorcet's role as a central figure in the
Enlightenment. However his coffin was empty. Interred in the
common cemetery of
Bourg-la-Reine,
his remains were lost during the nineteenth century.
Family
In 1786 Condorcet married
Sophie de
Grouchy, who was more than twenty years his junior. His wife,
reckoned one of the most beautiful women of the day, became an
accomplished
salon hostess as
Madame de Condorcet, and also an accomplished translator of
Thomas Paine and
Adam Smith. She was erudite, intelligent, and
well-educated, fluent in both English and Italian. The marriage was
a strong one, and Sophie visited her husband regularly while he
remained in hiding. Although she began proceedings for divorce in
January 1794, it was at the insistence of Condorcet and Cabanis,
who wished to protect their property from expropriation and to
provide financially for Sophie and their young child, a daughter
Louise Alexandrine, known as Eliza, who had been born in
1790.
Condorcet was survived by his widow and their four-year-old
daughter Eliza. Sophie died in 1822, never having remarried, and
having published all her husband's works between 1801 and 1804. Her
work was carried on by their daughter Eliza Condorcet-O'Connor,
wife of former United Irishman
Arthur
O'Connor. The Condorcet-O'Connors brought out a revised edition
between 1847 and 1849.
Condorcet and progress
Condorcet's writings were a key contribution to the
French Enlightenment, particularly his
work on the concept of human
progress. Previously it had been
inconceivable to believe that man could come to understand
everything about the natural world. Condorcet believed that through
the use of our senses and communication with others, knowledge
could be compared and contrasted as a way of analyzing our systems
of belief and understanding. None of Condorcet's writings refer to
a belief in a religion or a god who intervenes in human affairs.
Condorcet instead frequently had written of his faith in humanity
itself and its ability to progress with the help of philosophers
such as Aristotle. Through this accumulation and sharing of
knowledge he believed it was possible for any man to comprehend all
the known facts of the natural world. The
enlightenment of the natural world
spurred the desire for enlightenment of the social and political
world. Condorcet believed that there was no definition of the
perfect human existence and thus believed that the progression of
the human race would inevitably continue throughout the course of
our existence. He envisioned man as continually progressing toward
a perfectly
utopian society. However, he
stressed that for this to be a possibility man must unify
regardless of race, religion, culture or gender.
References
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