Essai sur l'application de l'analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix

Condorcet's enduringly relevant 1785 essay explores the potential for mathematical methods to improve majority decision making.

A believer in the development of a rational society through scientific thinking, Nicolas de Condorcet (1743–94) used this 1785 essay to analyse the extent to which mathematical methods can improve the making of majority decisions. He presents several notable results, including Condorcet's paradox, the subject of much twentieth-century work.A central figure in the early years of the French Revolution, Nicolas de Condorcet (1743–94) was active as a mathematician, philosopher, politician and economist. He argued for the values of the Enlightenment, from religious toleration to the abolition of slavery, believing that society could be improved by the application of rational thought. In this essay, first published in 1785, Condorcet analyses mathematically the process of making majority decisions, and seeks methods to improve the likelihood of their success. The work was largely forgotten in the nineteenth century, while those who did comment on it tended to find the arguments obscure. In the second half of the twentieth century, however, it was rediscovered as a foundational work in the theory of voting and societal preferences. Condorcet presents several significant results, among which Condorcet's paradox (the non-transitivity of majority preferences) is now seen as the direct ancestor of Arrow's paradox.