Condorcet
EnlightenmentFrench
Mathematician of the vote and prophet of progress, he believed reason would carry humanity upward, and died of the revolution he served.
Condorcet brought mathematics to politics, studying how groups make decisions and uncovering the paradoxes that still bear his name. He argued early and bravely for the rights of women and of enslaved people, and for free public education as the engine of equality. Hunted during the Terror by the revolution he had championed, he wrote his last book in hiding: a sweeping sketch of human progress, confident that knowledge would lift the species toward justice even as the state closed in on him. He was found dead in a cell days after his capture.
Places
Ideas
Words
“The time will come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no master but their reason.”
Works
Life & Moments
Born in Picardy
Born at Ribemont in northern France, a mathematician who turned his gifts to politics and reform.
Mathematics and Reform
Joined the Paris salons and the Academy, applying probability to voting and dreaming of a politics guided by reason.
Sketch of Human Progress
Wrote his confident vision of humanity's advance while hiding from the Terror, days before his death in a cell.
Death in Hiding
Died in a prison cell after fleeing the guillotine, the optimist of progress killed by the revolution he had served.
Influence
Influenced by
- Voltaire
Condorcet was Voltaire's friend and heir, carrying the campaign against superstition into mathematics and reform.
