Condorcet: A Key Thinker Who Opened the Gates of the Revolution in Education

Abstract

In this chapter, we focus on Condorcet himself, as a mathematician, philosopher and a “politician of education”. We describe his personality and the social background that made him a model case of the moral shift which occurred during the French Revolution when all social classes were reorganized. We bring forward a few of his more well-known theories, like the “paradox” between liberty and equality in education, which was ultimately resolved by the fraternity that unified the new society. We highlight the distinction Condorcet proposed between instruction and the development of knowledge vs. moral education. We briefly present Condorcet’s architecture for a new system of public instruction, which was constructed in five levels. These ideas, launched during the French Revolution, would take many decades to be fully implemented, with free, secular and compulsory primary schools appearing only during the nineteenth century. Condorcet is celebrated each time the French Revolution is remembered and, with the 1989 bicentenary of the Revolution, was formally recognized as a premier international thinker. Condorcet’s works were subsequently translated into many languages to serve a worldwide audience.