Cournot Antoine-Augustin (1801–77), French mathematician and economist. A critical realist in scientific and philosophical matters, he was a conservative in religion and politics. His Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth (1838), though a fiasco at the time, pioneered mathematical economics. Cournot upheld a position midway between science and metaphysics. His philosophy rests on three basic concepts: order, chance, and probability. The Exposition of the Theory of Chances and Probabilities (1843) focuses on the calculus of probability, unfolds a theory of chance occurrences, and distinguishes among objective, subjective, and philosophical probability. The Essay on the Foundations of Knowledge (1861) defines science as logically organized knowledge. Cournot developed a probabilist epistemology, showed the relevance of probabilism to the scientific study of human acts, and further assumed the existence of a providential and complex order undergirding the universe. Materialism, Vitalism, Rationalism (1875) acknowledges transrationalism and makes room for finality, purpose, and God.
J.L.S.