ABSTRACT
Important aspects of the evolution of political economy in France regard the various attempts at the quantification of economic variables and the formalisation of economic discourse. This chapter first deals with attempts at quantification, in which, for economic and political reasons, what is called today’s demography played a central role in the progress of techniques – with Pierre-Simon Laplace in particular, who used the recently developed probability theory. Then, it is shown how formalisation and probability theory is used by M.-J.-A.-N. Caritat de Condorcet to transform the old political arithmetic into a “social mathematic”, especially in the field of social choices. Finally, the chapter deals with some significant attempts in the use of algebra in economic reasoning – as distinct from the use of probability theory – stressing the particular state of the development of mathematics at that time. While the physiocrats insisted on the importance of “calculations”, the hostility of F. Quesnay towards algebra is dealt with, as well as the ambiguous attempt of P.S. Dupont de Nemours and the isolated development by another of Quesnay’s disciples, C.R. de Butré. Finally, the uses of formalisation by A.-N. Isnard, N.-F. Canard and C.-F. de Bicquilley are restated and discussed.
