Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat is a French mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and politician, who is widely regarded as a polymath and one of the most influential intellects of the 18th century. He is known by several monikers such as "Marquis de Condorcet," "Nicolas Caritat," and "Antoine Caritat." Condorcet was a member of the French Revolutionary National Convention and served as Minister of Education under Louis XVI. He is most famous for his work on social progress, including his writings on women's rights, slavery, and education. In mathematics, he is best known for his work on probability theory, which eventually led to the development of Bayesian statistics.