Materialism and history: Diderot and the Histoire des deux Indes

In the last years of his life, Diderot made a large number of anonymous contributions to Raynal's widely read Histoire des deux Indes. The identification of these passages over the last thirty years has led to a view of Diderot's later political thought as being far more radical than had previously been supposed. But his contributions in general are notable for their pessimism about the situation in France and in Europe generally. In part this was due to his belief in a cyclical view of history, but it was also due to his bringing to his understanding of history the materialist, and resolutely non‐providential, view of nature which he had developed earlier.     

L'histoire des sciences et l'enseignement scientifique

In the second half of the xix^th century, Victor Duruy introduces a remarkable innovation by founding a composition on method and history of science in the three scientificagrégations (mathematics, physical sciences, natural sciences). Subjects have been collected and place allowed to history, after the suppression of this test, is analyzed. At the beginning of the xx^th century, the history of science has disappeared fromagrégation, but training teachers in history of science still appears as a necessity and requests are made to include the discipline in their curriculum. Introduction of the history of science might contribute to abolish drastic partitions between different topics and the history of scientific education would give masters distance towards matter they teach.