Thierry Martin

Antoine Augustin Cournot

Cournot was born at Gray (Haute-Saone) on 28 August 1801 and died in Paris on 30 March 1877. Until the age of fifteen his education was at Gray. After studying at Besancon he was admitted to the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris in 1821. In 1823 he obtained his licentiate in sciences and in October of that year was employed by Marshal Gouvion-Saint-Cyr as literary adviser to the Marshal and tutor to his son. In 1829 he obtained his doctorate in science with a main thesis in mechanics and a secondary one in astronomy. Through the sponsorship of Poisson in 1834 he obtained the professorship in analysis and mechanics at Lyon.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de buffon

Author of the monumental Histoire Naturelle, Buffon also introduced several original ideas in probability and statistics, notably the premier example in “geometric probability” and a body of experimental and theoretical work in demography.

J.-H. Lambert's theory of probable syllogisms

In his Neues Organon of 1764, the mathematician and astronomer Jean-Henri Lambert [12] developed a theory of probable syllogisms, with the aim of formally describing the probabilist reasoning and then applying it to the probability of testimony, thus imparting an epistemic sense to the concept of probability. In the present text, we propose to study the principles of this theory and the difficulties it raises.

Gabriel Tarde et la statistique criminelle

Gabriel Tarde, le juge de Sarlat, attribue a la statistique une place centrale dans sa sociologie, comme le montrent ses etudes de statistique criminelle. Il y developpe une conception originale et lucide du role de la statistique, dans laquelle il voit l’instrument privilegie permettant de decrire, non pas l’etat, mais l’evolution des phenomenes sociaux. Le but de cet article est d’evaluer la pertinence et les limites de cette conception dynamique de la statistique, en montrant comment elle est etroitement liee chez Tarde a sa doctrine philosophique et sociologique.

Cournot’s Probabilistic Epistemology

From his earliest publications, Cournot broke from tradition with his predecessors in applying mathematical modelling to the social sphere. Consequently, he was the first to affirm the mathematization of social phenomena as an essential principle. The fecundity of Cournot’s works stems not only from this departure, but also from a richness that irrigated the social sciences of the twentieth century. In this collection, the contributors – including two Nobel laureates in economics – highlight Cournot’s profound innovativeness and continued relevance in the areas of industrial economics, mathematical economics, market competition, game theory and epistemology of probability and statistics. Each of the seven authors reminds us of the force and modernity of Cournot’s thought as a mathematician, historian of the sciences, philosopher and, not least, as an economist.