Marquis de Condorcet

Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, was an eighteenth-century French mathematician, philosopher, and political thinker. He championed social progress, education, and political equality, and applied mathematical reasoning to collective decisions.

Jean le Rond d'Alembert: A French mathematician and philosopher who co-edited the Encyclopédie and helped shape Enlightenment thought. D'Alembert supported Condorcet's entry into the Paris Academy of Sciences.
Condorcet's jury theorem: A result showing that majority voting becomes more likely to identify the correct choice as the number of competent, independent voters grows. This theorem formalizes Condorcet's argument that collective judgment can outperform individual judgment.
Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind: Condorcet's unfinished 1795 work arguing that human knowledge and social conditions can improve over time. This book presents his clearest account of progress as a guide to political reform.
Enlightenment: An eighteenth-century intellectual movement that emphasized reason, criticism, and reform of political and social institutions. Condorcet's arguments for progress and equal rights developed within its French currents.
Condorcet method: A voting rule that elects the candidate who defeats every other candidate in separate pairwise contests, if one exists. This family of election methods carries his pairwise-comparison approach into modern voting theory.
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot: A French economist and statesman who served as controller-general under Louis XVI and pursued reform. Turgot became a mentor and political ally whose reformist outlook influenced Condorcet.
Condorcet's paradox: A voting paradox in which pairwise majority preferences form a cycle, despite each voter's preferences being transitive. The paradox reveals a central limit of the collective-choice methods Condorcet studied.
Public education: Education organized or supported by public institutions and made broadly accessible. Condorcet proposed a national system of instruction independent of religious authority.
Encyclopédie: A French reference work edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert to organize knowledge and challenge authority. Condorcet contributed to the project that embodied the Enlightenment's ambition to systematize knowledge.
Condorcet criterion: A standard for voting methods requiring election of a candidate who beats every rival in pairwise majority contests. The criterion translates Condorcet's central electoral ideal into a test for voting rules.

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