Marquis de Condorcet

Marquis de Condorcet was an 18th-century French philosopher and mathematician best known for his ideas on democracy and voting. He proposed that collective decision-making could lead to better outcomes than individual decisions and developed the "Condorcet method" for elections, which aims to identify the most broadly preferred candidate. Condorcet believed in progress and human rights, advocating for women's education and the abolition of slavery. His work laid foundational concepts for modern democratic theory and social choice, emphasizing the importance of reason and evidence in governance. His tragic death during the French Revolution marked a significant loss to Enlightenment thought.