Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet marquis de

Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de (17430–94), French mathematician and philosopher. A brilliant thinker, he wrote biographies of Voltaire and Turgot, important essays on integral calculus and the theory of probability, and works in political science. He is best known for his Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1795), which sets forth his belief in the perfectibility of mankind.