Historicitat i heterodòxia. La divulgació científica de Louis Figuier (1819-1894)

Abstract

The life and works of Louis Figuier (1819-1894) are still poorly known. Considered as a second-class author in the pantheon of the great names of modern science, Figuier’s popularization books and articles rarely have raised the interest of historians of science neither literary scholars. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Figuier became a deeply committed, strongly influential science populariser across Europe. Figuier’s “style” deserves further examination and can even enlighten present-day debates on the nature and aims of science popularization.

Through the analysis of a selection of Figuier’s texts, this paper brings to the fore unknown aspects of his science popularization. The article focuses on Figuier’s extensive use of history of science in his numerous biographies of the great luminaries of science and technology. It also describes in detail Figuier’s use of several “heterodox”, “pseudoscientific” practices, which, paradoxically, soon became a powerful tool to spread the “positive” science of his time.