Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet. Philosopher, mathematician and politician French. The variety of the fields which it approaches, the diversity of its works and its personality made of Condorcet an unclassable character, still today object of debates. The mathematician
Born in Ribemont in Picardy, in 1743, son of a noble soldier that he did not know, raised by his mother in the medium of the middle-class of dress, the young person Nicolas de Caritat, acquires, thanks to his maternal uncle Claude Nicolas Gaudry, subdelegated of the intendant of Soissons, a knowledge of the economic life and social of his area. Raise Jesuits in Rheims, it contracts in their schools a hostility for the religion and its orders which will not leave it any more. It is in the mathematical studies that it launches out successfully, as from 1758, with the College of Navarre to Paris, where it is subject to the influence of its professor, the abbot Girault de Keroudou. Its first work on the integral calculus (1765) is worth to him the regard of the Fontaine geometrician and Alembert, but already him several defects are reproached: rejecting style, badly released results, doubtful demonstrations, quasi non-existent numerical applications.
Condorcet then adopts a step of “pure mathematician”, considering the mathematical objects a priori. He dissociates his Master thus, of Alembert, “mathematician mixed” (according to the traditional expression to the XVIII E century), for whom these objects remain indissociable problems which made them build.
The Academy of Science
Condorcet is named member of the Academy of Science at twenty-six years, in 1769. In analysis, its essential contribution relates to “integration in finished terms”, i.e. the research of the conditions under which the solutions of a differential equation can be expressed using the elementary functions (i.e. polynomials, logarithms, sine, etc). It releases from the general terms, and gives a method of calculating of the solutions, anticipating the theorem of Liouville of more than fifty years. Unfortunately, its major treaty of integral calculus remains new: this fact, joint with darknesses of style, contributes to leave its unperceived result.
D' Alembert controls Condorcet in the encyclopedic medium however, introduces it into the living room of Julie de Lespinasse, probably as of the middle of the years 1760. There, then in the company of Holbach and Helvétius, the young mathematician widens the field of his reflections (the Problem of the three bodies, 1767). Since 1767, it wrote some legal and philosophical memories which it will not publish; it starts to take some notes on the “arithmetic policy” and, as from May 1770, it approaches the theory of probability; in September of the same year it meets Voltaire with Ferney: as from this moment, it will support all the actions of the patriarch against the lawsuits assembled by the Church, the Parliament and the parties of intolerance. However, this diversification of its centers of interest does not prevent it from continuing its research in pure analysis.
The Turgot ministry
D' Alembert, which seeks to place its close relations at positions of responsibility, pushes Condorcet to write the Praises of academicians died in the XVII E century and to which Fontenelle had not paid homage. This work will enable him to enter to the Academy of Science, in 1769 and to become the perpetual secretary about it, in 1773.
Meanwhile, Condorcet advises his/her friend Turgot, when this one becomes general inspector of Finances (1774-1776): Turgot seeks to rationalize the economic life and policy, and attaches a great importance to the opinion of the scientists like Trudaine, Rochon, Margerie, Desmarest, Bossut, Dez… It makes name Condorcet general inspector of the Currencies: unification of the weights, measurements and currencies, examination of the channels, reforms gauging of the barrels and vessels, such are the new concerns of the mathematician.
The fall of Turgot marks much Condorcet, which returns to the “geometry”, but continues also the combat of the Encyclopedists as well on a theoretical level as in its work of secretary of the Academy.
One imagines badly today the diversity of academic work: basic research, but also examination of the inventions and questions close to the economy. Besides its mathematical memories, Condorcet thus writes reports on a new land register, on the price of the bread, a machine to make the coins, on insurance companies; it must moreover pronounce the praises of the academicians deceased and summarize the principal reports published in volumes of the Academy, as well in geometry as in astronomy, natural history or chemistry. During twenty years, its functions will help it to build a particularly vast culture.
The arithmetic policy
The arithmetic policy, born in England at the end of the XVII E century, has yet only one limited object: to evaluate populations, to help controlling them by some calculations on such or such particular question. During years 1770 and with the beginning of the year 1780, takes place gradually at Condorcet a meeting between its general aspirations, its mathematical research and its work diversified within the framework of the Academy. He wants to extend the field of the arithmetic policy to all kinds of questions legal, political, economic and even philosophical, to elucidate the concepts, to study the conditions of use of calculation, to articulate calculations with the data of the experiment, to improve and make more rigorous mathematics which intervenes there. In other words, the simple idea, then widespread, according to which social sciences could be treated scientifically is transformed with Condorcet into a true work program: it is the Test on the application of the analysis of 1785. The “mathematician-philosopher” poses the premises of modern social sciences thus, in spite of the absence, at the time, of the conditions of their concrete development.
In others memories relating to the theory of probability, calculations of insurances and finances, Condorcet outlines remarkable methods to take into account the phenomena of competition or the dependences between random events, but its systematic search for general information often obliges it to be limited to “programs” not being able to lead to concrete calculations; it gives him, on the other hand, a theoretical audacity which one will only appreciate much later. to the XX E century. It appears a pioneer of the statistics while proposing to apply mathematics to the social analysis.
From 1785, Condorcet seeks to spread its arithmetic policy, this “new science”: it tries to convince princes and ministers of the need for teaching it, initially, at least with the entourage of the power. For him, the reason is, altogether, independent of questions of interests. “All the classes of the company have only one same interest”, he will say later, their complementarity is beneficial; the skids of the system must be moderate by wise institutions, contingency funds. It cannot be question, for Condorcet, to allot a constructive role and progressist to any class struggle. The combat of the reason against the prejudices constitutes the axis of its militant action; its objective lies more in one rational transformation of the power than in its political transfer. It erects scaffolding then of the reform projects, as in its Test on the constitution and the functions of the provincial assemblies, published at the end of 1788.
The Revolution and the Republic
In the middle of the years 1780, Condorcet believes that the progress of the Lights made any revolution improbable, that the process which leads to justice will be gradual. Since 1781, it engages in the policy, defending the ideas of Turgot and publishing articles in favor of the equality of the sexes or condemning slavery. Even if it is in phase with various values promoted by the breath of 1789 - and that marked already many its works, of the Letters of a theologist (1774) to the Reflections on the slavery of the negros (1781) - Condorcet often will be surprised, even disorientated by the events of the French revolution. For example, he decides against the convocation of the General states (he will not be elected besides there), against the interventions of the Parisian people on on August 10th, 1792, which reverses monarchy (whereas after the escape of the king in Varennes, the previous year, he had decided for the introduction of the Republic), and on on June 2nd, 1793, which eliminates the Of Gironde ones and gives to the Jacobins the control of Convention.
Today, the most famous act of Condorcet during the Revolution remains his report on the state education read April 20th and 21st, 1792, with the legislative Parliament, of which he is member, the very same day of the declaration of war in Austria and Prussia. In this report, he recommends an state education, free (but nonobligatory) this which was not always the case in its former texts. Its ideas on the question evolved indeed much. Until 1773, he decided for the education deprived against public education, in his eyes too synonymous with emulation. He launches out in a vast project of organization of the state education, which nevertheless will not be retained. In 1790, it controls its designs: the policy is a business of science, but it must be decided by the people; however, from a gathering of ignoramuses cannot be born the truth: the state education thus becomes a precondition at the same time so that the policy of a government is led with accuracy and so that each citizen is able to exert his sovereignty with full knowledge of the facts (conquered by the Revolution), so that the opposition between those which “know” and those disappears which “believe”.
Liberal or conservative?
In which group, Condorcet does it line up at the time of the revolutionary debates, in particular as from the moment when it is elected appointed (September 1791)? It adopts the of Gironde ones. But does one have to regard it as “Of Gironde”? The question remains all the more discussed since there does not exist at the time of “parties” to the modern direction of the term. On the ideological level, by its early positions for the Republic, against slavery, for “the admission of the women to the established among”, by its engagement warmonger, its opposition to the economic interventions of the State, it seems well Girondin and liberal, often even the inspirer of the ideas of this group. But the answer is less clear when one examines his political votes with Convention.
Its reform proposals hardly comprise indications on the possible completion dates. For many historians of the XX E century, Condorcet seeks to channel the aspirations of the people in order to prevent them from overflowing of the framework of middle-class liberalism: besides do not adopt it the behavior of the middle-class while acquiring nearly 1 000 hectares of national goods, which it will pay only partly, like good of others.
Do the big events, and by him unforeseen, of the Revolution upset its frameworks of thought and action? Essentially, not. The difficulties of adaptation to the fast political decisions represent, for the encyclopedist become politician, an additional complication with its project rather than a questioning. Issued charge on on October 3rd, 1793 to have dared to criticize the constitution project presented by Herault de Séchelles, it hides for five months in the house of Mrs. Vernet, street Servandoni, in Paris. It is there that he works with the drafting of a historical Table of progress of the human spirit, of which he completes the Draft in October. This work confirms its scientific, political and social thought, its staunch confidence in historical progress and the human happiness of the Age of Enlightenment. Its fine tragedy (the Condorcet on on March 25th, 1794 leaves its refuge; the 27, it is stopped in Clamart; the 28 <29?>, one finds it dead, undoubtedly committed suicide by poisoning, in the prison of Borough-the Equality ); its death will be known later only nine months, under the Thermidorian Convention, which will dedicate a true worship to him.
The posterity of Condorcet
Reception of work, as well scientific as political, of Condorcet is very contrasted. The dominant ideology of the XIX E century affirms that moral science follows principles more mysterious than those of the geometry: it can thus only reject the social mathematics of Condorcet. Moreover, the theorists who aspire to treat the morals questions and policies in a scientific way employ very different ways.
The political appreciations also testify to a great diversity: the homage more running, that of the republican middle-class, Arago to moderate of IIIe Republic, edulcorates and idealizes Condorcet, thus praising “a Revolution removed from its excesses”, then “a finally finished Revolution”. But one also made of Condorcet the inspirer of Terror, the first of the radicals, the first of the Socialists: swindles, anachronisms or misinterpretation? In any case, it is to forget that Condorcet does not lie within the scope of the generally accepted ideas of the XIX E and the XX E century on the policy.
After the revolution of October, the displacement of the political reflection and historiography of the French revolution towards the explicit analyzes of class, in particular by the historian Albert Mathiez (the French revolution, 1922-1924; Of Gironde and Mountain, 1930), tiny room to little thing historical interest of Condorcet and its “political variations”.
A visionary
They are scientists and economists who revalue little by little, as from 1950, the depth of the thought of Condorcet, within a new and enthusiastic development of the social sciences and company. The interest of the political role of the encyclopedist will be in fact re-examined only at the time of the bicentenary of the Revolution, in 1989.
Condorcet has little effectiveness on the short term; it is a man of long and wide sights, but made abstraction of the political questions related to social antagonisms. Isn't the articulation between the two levels quite delicate still today?
Perfect incarnation of the enlightened high society of the Age of Enlightenment, Condorcet tried to apply its logic of mathematician to the double transformation, on the one hand, of an absolute monarchy and a company of orders in a modern State, on the other hand with the constitution of people informs and responsible, able to ensure the operation of a representative political system. If it failed to guide the Revolution, it was one of the emblems of IIIe République incipient and particularly of the program from teaching of Jules Ferry.
The image of Condorcet aristocrat, elitist and liberal, optimistic dreamer and satisfied philanthropist, must thus be seriously moderate. The mathematician, the “last of the Encyclopedists”, does not seem a thinker with the service of the immediate interests of such or such fraction of the middle-class, nor even of this one as a whole, but like the man of the rising middle-class and progressist, sure of the universal character of his values: he continues a rational organization of the right, administration, science, instruction, even of the daily life; he aims, by the action, with an indefinite perfectibility of the mankind.
Bibliography
1765 Of the integral calculus
1767 Of the problem of the three bodies
1768 Tests of analysis
1773 Praises of the academicians of the royal Academy of sciences died from the year 1666 in 1699
1774 Letters of one theologist to the author of the three century old Dictionary
1775 Publication of a series of booklets in favor of the economic reforms of Turgot. Letter of a plowman of Picardy with Mr. NR. (Necker) prohibitory author in Paris. - Reflections on the drudgeries. Monopoly and monopolist. - Report on a project of reformer of the land register. - Reflections on universal jurisprudence
1776 Praises of French and foreign scientists as a perpetual secretary of the Academy of Science. Reflections on the trade of corns. - Thoughts of Pascal, corrected and increased edition. - Praise of Pascal.
1776-1777 Contribution to the Supplement of the Encyclopedia (22 articles on the mathematical analysis)
1777 Praise of Michel of the Hospital
1778 On a few infinite series. - New Experiments on the resistance of the fluids (in collaboration with Alembert and Bossut).
1780 Test on the theory of comets
1781-1784 Memories on the theory of probability, in Memories of the royal Academy of sciences. - I. Reflections on the general rule which prescribes to take for value of a dubious event the probability of this event multiplied by the value of this event in itself (1781); - II. Application of the analysis to this question: to determine the probability that a regular arrangement is the effect of an intention to produce it; - III. On the evaluation of the possible rights (1782); - IV. Reflections on the method to determine the probability of the future events according to the observation of the last events (1783); - V. On the probability of the extraordinary facts. Application of the preceding article to some questions of criticism (1784).
1782 Reflections on the slavery of the negros
1782 Speeches of reception to the French Academy (February 21st). - Letter on Swedenborg.
1783 Dialog between Aristippe and Diogène
1783-1788 Test to know the population of the kingdom
1784-1789 Collaboration, with Alembert, Bossut, Lalande, etc, with the part “Mathematics” of the Encyclopedia
1785 Test on the application of the analysis to the probability of the decisions returned to the plurality of the voices.
1785-1789 complete Works of Voltaire, published with Beaumarchais, etc (edition of Kehl). - Life of Voltaire
1786 Life of Mr. Turgot. Influence of the revolution of America on Europe. - Treaty of integral calculus (unfinished).
1788 Letters of a middle-class man of New Haven to a citizen of Virginia, on uselessness sharing the legislative power between several bodies. - Letters of a citizen of the United States to a French, on the business present of France. - Test on the constitution and the functions of the provincial assemblies.
1789 Principal writings: Reflections on the powers and instructions to be given by the provinces their deputies to the General states. - On the form of the elections. - Reflections on what was made and on what remains to be made. - With the electorate on Slavery of the Blacks. - Declaration of the rights. - Praise of Mr. Turgot.
1790 Principal writings: Philosophical and political essay on this question: if it is useful for the men to be misled? - Opinion on the emigrants. - On the word “lampoonist”. It True and the False Friend of the people. - On the admission of the women to the established among.
1791 Principal writings and speech: Republic, or a king is necessary to the conservation of freedom? - Speech on national conventions.
1791-1792 Principal writings and speech: Five Memories on the state education. - Speech on finances. - On the freedom of the circulation of the subsistence. It French Republic with the free men. this that it is that a French farmer or craftsman. - On the need for the union enters the citizens. - Nature of the political powers in a free nation.
1793 Principal writings and speech: On the need for establishing in France a new constitution. this that the citizens have right to wait of their representatives. - That all the classes of the company have only one same interest. - On the direction of the “Revolutionary” word. - General Table of the science which has as an aim the application of calculation to political sciences and morals.
1795 Outline of a historical table of progress of the human spirit (posthumous).