“The Herodotus of Geometry”: Montucla and the Birth of a General Historiography of Science in the French Enlightenment
2023; Springer International Publishing; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1007/978-3-030-99498-3_22-1
ISSN2523-7756
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Philosophy and Science
ResumoThis chapter retraces the way in which the first European general history of science was conceived and brought to completion by Jean-Étienne Montucla (1725–1799), one of the members of the group of philosophes gathering around Jean Le Rond d’Alembert when, during the 1750s, he was editor of the Encyclopédie. Combining a tireless historical work with strong philosophical views derived from one of the most preeminent members of the French Enlightenment movement, Montucla ultimately gave modern science its first sophisticated historical narration: thus, the forging and publication of the first edition of Montucla’s Histoire des mathématiques (1758) will be taken as an auspicious vantage point to explore the ways in which the history of science was written, and the historical course of science conceptualized, during the mature phase of the Enlightenment.
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