Marie Jean Antoine de Condorcet: Oeuvres

It was in the cultural philosophy of Condorcet that the spirit of the French Enlightenment was given its clearest and its final expression. Condorcet (1743-1794) was already looking back at the Enlightenment as a historical phenomenon and classified it as part of a sketch for a 'Geschichte der Fortschritte des menschlichen Geistes' (Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit). Condorcet, a friend of Voltaire's and those working on the 'Encyclopédie', commented on political issues of his time in many publications. He joined the Revolution in 1789 and as the president of the national assembly he wrote a draft for a comprehensive Education nationale. Condorcet wrote his philosophical legacy as an outlaw. He was poisoned to death in a dungeon.