Condorcet and Modernity (review)

The publisher offers David Williams's book as 'the first full treatment of Condorcet's politics to appear for a generation.' It is indeed one of the principal virtues of Condorcet and Modernity that its comprehensive reading of Condorcet draws fully on the considerable body of research on the philosopher's thinking that has appeared in the past thirty years, research that (as Williams remarks) has 'helped to internationalize Condorcet and rescue him from the margins of intellectual history, allowing the voice of a political thinker of outstanding originality and relevance to be heard once more'(p. 8). If it offers little that will surprise Condorcet specialists, it does much to present the results of their work synthetically and in a manner suitable for a broader academic and public audience. Condorcet has often been portrayed as the epitome of the abstract rationalism of the Enlightenment, one of the best exemplars of a style of thinking that so profoundly differentiated the French philosophes from their counterparts across the Channel. Emma Rothschild's recent work, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment (2001), has done much to put this view into question, and Williams provides further arguments along this line. Presenting Condorcet's ideas as 'a strikingly original blend of science, visionary idealism and a hard-nosed pragmatism to which it always remained firmly anchored'(p. 2), he makes it his principal task to 'illuminate the pragmatics of the project'(p. 1). With this goal in mind, the reader is naturally drawn through early considerations of Condorcet's views on individual rights and the civil order toward the fourth chapter, 'Managing Enlightenment.' It presents the philosopher's ideas about progress, social mathematics, and the organization of science clearly enough, but without quite focusing on the topic suggested by its title. Williams quotes passages from Condorcet's tributes to d'Alembert, Turgot, and Voltaire regarding their belief in the need for gradualism, though the extent to which these remarks represent traces of their running debate with an impatient younger disciple is not considered. The core of this book, though, is to be found in the chapters discussing the philosopher's (largely pre-Revolutionary) arguments for, and political interventions in favor of, economic liberalization, the decriminalization of Protestantism, the abolition of the slave trade and (only gradual) elimination of slavery, the enfranchisement of women, the reform of civil law and criminal procedure, and the organization of provincial assemblies. All these campaigns are admirably presented in a way that emphasizes their attention to practical detail and their relative political caution — though there is clearly room for debate in this regard. No work on the subject offers a better overview of this astonishingly broad range of reforming efforts. The book is framed by a survey of Condorcet's political life (unfortunately marred by a number of errors, including the misdating of the American Declaration of Independence (p. 25) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (p. 28)) and a relatively brief account of his revolutionary career. The conclusion places him, appropriately, among 'a new breed of social planners and political scientists, of policy makers conscious of the potential power of political arithmetic as an instrument of efficient and enlightened governmental administration and rational forward planning, and for whom the sole purpose of the pact of association was the advancement of public happiness.' Liberalism was young enough in those days to have no fear of the technocrat.