Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet

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Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794)

Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (born September 17, 1743 in Ribemont , † March 29, 1794 in Bourg de l'Égalité , now Bourg-la-Reine) was a French philosopher , mathematician and politician of the Enlightenment .

Condorcet was a staunch enlightener , a liberal, and a cultural innovator of modernity before and during the French Revolution . In 1790, shortly after the proclamation of human rights and civil rights , he vehemently advocated granting these to women as well. In his essay Sur l'admission des femmes au droit de cité published on July 3, 1790 , he advocated the introduction of women's suffrage . In addition, he advocated equal rights for black people in connection with the abolition of slavery and free trade .

Harold B. Acton described him as an Enlightenment man, an advocate of economic and social freedom, religious tolerance, and legal and educational reform . However, Condorcet was also a man of strict principles. His childhood friend Amélie Suard characterized him as follows: “There was no one who was more firm in his convictions, no one who was more constant in his feelings.” Condorcet said of himself: “I will never demean myself to justify my principles and my behavior . ”He is also famous in the field of social and political science for the so-called Condorcet paradox .

Life

Condorcet first received training at the Jesuit college in Reims , then he studied at the Collège Mazarin in Paris . In 1765 Condorcet published Essai sur le calcul intégral . During this creative phase he published several important mathematical works, for example another on integral calculus in 1772 . In the same year Condorcet met the French economist Anne Robert Jacques Turgot , who two years later (1774) under Louis XV. appointed inspector general of the state mint . He held this position until 1791, but reluctantly after Turgot's dismissal in 1776.

Marquis de Condorcet

Condorcet, who had been a member of the Paris Académie des Sciences since 1769 , was made permanent secretary in 1776. He was close to the encyclopedists and was a member of the Académie française from 1782 . In 1786 he married the author and translator Sophie de Grouchy (1764–1822); she later became known for the influential political salon she ran, and she was considered one of the most beautiful women of her time. Since 1775 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1792 Condorcet was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . From 1786 to 1793 he was a foreign member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and from 1776 to 1792 an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg .

His most important scientific contributions were his work on probability theory and mathematical philosophy , as well as on analysis and the three-body problem (1768). His treatise Essai sur l'application de l'analysis à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix , published in 1785, was decisive for the development of probability theory .

Condorcet developed the Condorcet method (for conducting and evaluating elections from one of several candidates; one of its competitors at the time was Jean Charles Borda ). He is known for the Condorcet paradox , according to which it is possible that a majority prefers option A over option B, at the same time a majority prefers option B over option C and yet a majority prefers option C over option A.

The Condorcet jury theorem is also known . In its basic form it is based on the following assumptions: A jury has to choose between two options; every member of this jury is able to choose the better decision with probability q> 0.5; a jury decides with an absolute majority of the (uneven) number of its members. With these three assumptions, the following three statements hold true:

  • The probability of a correct decision by a jury of three or more members is greater than the probability of a correct decision by a single member.
  • The likelihood of a correct jury decision increases with the number of members.
  • If the number of members approaches infinity, the probability of a correct decision approaches one.

For the case q <0.5, the opposite applies: the fewer members vote, the better. The jury theorem is important for the comparison between representative and direct democracy, between federal and centralized systems, or between steep or flat hierarchies in organizations.

Condorcet was also active as a biographer and published Vie de M. Turgot (1786) and Vie de Voltaire (1789). It is clear from these biographies that he supported Turgot's economic theories as well as Voltaire's opposition to the churches.

French Revolution

At the outbreak of the French Revolution , which he joined in 1789, he represented the cause of the Liberals and was a member of the Society of Thirty . In his work "Sur l´admission des femmes au droit de cité" in 1790 he called for citizenship and the right to vote for women. In 1791 he was elected as a Paris deputy in the Legislative National Assembly, in February 1792 he became its president. In this role he drafted far-reaching plans for a state education system , the so-called "national education ". This envisaged the elimination of all class differences in education and its independence from state and church. He also called for comprehensive adult education.

As one of the leaders of the Republicans and deputy of the convention , he joined the moderate Girondins and vehemently took the view that the king's life should be spared. Condorcet was a member of the Constitutional Committee . By February 1793 he had drafted a republican constitution, which was supported by the Girondists. However, since these were overthrown in June of the same year, the draft was never accepted.

With the overthrow of the Girondins and the takeover of power by the more radical Jacobins under Robespierre , Condorcet was also accused, also because he argued violently against what he believed to be a bungling new constitution. He went into hiding and was able to evade arrest until 1794. In hiding, he wrote the philosophical treatise Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain . In this historical outline, Condorcet followed the progress of the human mind from its beginnings. He divided the development into nine epochs and showed the constant further development, the perfectibility of man. He held the view that man is naturally good and capable of perfecting his intellectual and moral dispositions. Educational differences are the main cause of tyranny . For this reason, Condorcet advocated publicly accessible educational institutions early on, which should be independent of government influence. According to Condorcet, a distinction should be made between basic school education and advanced adult education .

In March 1794, he fled his hiding place in a Paris apartment building because he no longer felt safe there. However, his escape from Paris ended after three days, on March 27, 1794 with his arrest in Clamart and incarceration. Depending on the source, he died the same day or two days later. The cause of death has also not been completely clarified: some claim that he was poisoned by his captors , others assume suicide or even death through exhaustion . Condorcet's writings were posthumously printed in 1802 as Œuvres Complètes by Carl Friedrich Cramer in Paris and published in Braunschweig.

Honors

Works (selection)

Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progres de l'esprit humain , 1795
  • 1775: Réflexions sur la jurisprudence universelle.
  • 1781: Réflexions sur l'esclavage des nègres.
  • 1781–1784: Mémoire sur le calcul des probabilités, in Mémoires de l'Académie royale des sciences.
  • 1783: Dialogue between Aristippe et Diogéne.
  • 1785: Essai sur l'application de l'analysis à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix. Full text in Google Book Search
  • 1786: De l'influence de la révolution d'Amérique sur l'Europe.
  • 1789: Vie de Voltaire ; reissued: Brissot-Thivars, Paris 1822
    • German 1791: Life of Voltair , translated by Dietrich Heinrich Stoever, Unger, Berlin.
  • 1789: Au corps électoral sur Esclavage des Noirs.
  • 1789: Déclaration des droits.
  • 1790: Sur l'admission des femmes au droit de cité.
  • 1792: Cinq mémoires sur l'instruction publique. Flammarion, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-08-070783-3
  • 1793: Sur la nécessité d'établir en France une constitution nouvelle.
  • 1793: Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain. German 1796: Draft of a historical painting of the progress of the human mind. Condorcet's estate , translated by Ernst Ludwig Posselt, Cotta, Tübingen.

Modern work edition

  • Marie Jean Antoine de Condorcet: Oeuvres , ed. by A. Condorcet O'Connor and F. Arago, Paris 1847-49. Reprint in 12 volumes by Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1968, ISBN 978-3-7728-0099-3

literature

  • Alfred Kölz : Progress, unideological: On the actuality of Condorcets (1743–1794) , in: Alfred Kölz: The way of Switzerland to the modern federal state. Historical essays , pp. 161–170, Chur, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-7253-0609-5
  • Stephan Lüchinger: The political thinking of Condorcet (1743–1794) , Haupt, Bern 2002, ISBN 3-258-06557-8
  • Rolf Reichardt: Reform and Revolution at Condorcet. A contribution to the late Enlightenment in France , (Paris historical studies; Vol. 10), Röhrscheid, Bonn 1973, ISBN 3-7928-0316-X ( digitized version )
  • Heinz-Hermann Schepp: Antoine de Condorcet (1743–1794) , in: Hans Scheuerl (Hrsg.): Klassiker der Pädagogik , Beck, Munich
    • 1. - From Erasmus from Rotterdam to Herbert Spencer , 1991, ISBN 3-406-35533-1 , pp. 159-169 u. 323-324
  • Daniel Schulz (ed.): Marquis de Condorcet: Freedom, Revolution, Constitution - Small political writings . 2010. ISBN 978-3-05-004461-3 , Writings on the European History of Ideas, Vol. 4
  • Dieter Thomä: To Caritat de Condorcet, advice to his daughter in: Philosophische Meisterstücke I , Reclam, Stuttgart, 2006. ISBN 978-3-15-009735-9
  • David Williams: Condorcet and modernity , CUP, Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0-521-84139-9
  • Ruth Zimmerling: Freedom, Equality, Truth - The Revolution of Citizen Charity. ( Memento of July 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Working paper 2003, PDF; 50 kB.

Web links

Wikisource: Nicolas de Condorcet  - Sources and full texts (French)
Commons : Nicolas de Condorcet  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2015; Article on the marquis de Condorcet
  2. ↑ Member History: Marquis de MJAN Caritat Condorcet. American Philosophical Society, accessed June 25, 2018 .
  3. ^ Members of the previous academies. Marie Jean Antoine Marquis de Condorcet. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on March 9, 2015 .
  4. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed September 23, 2015 .
  5. ↑ German: Draft of a historical representation of the progress of the human mind
  6. ^ German excerpts in Martin Morgenstern , Robert Zimmer Ed .: State foundations and interpretations of history. Meeting point philosophy, 4th Patmos, Düsseldorf 2001 ISBN 3-491-75641-3 & Bayerischer Schulbuch Verlag BSV, Munich 2001 ISBN 3-7627-0325-6 p. 10f.
predecessor Office successor

Élie Guadet 		President of the Legislative Assembly of France
February 7, 1792-19. February 1792
Mathieu Dumas
personal data
SURNAME Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caritat, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French philosopher, mathematician, politician and communication theorist
DATE OF BIRTH September 17, 1743
PLACE OF BIRTH Ribemont
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1794
Place of death Bourg-la-Reine