Evelyne Barbin et Yannick Marec. Les « Recherches sur la probabilité des jugements » de Simon-Denis Poisson. Le mathématicien S.D. Poisson écrit en 1837 les Recherches sur la probabilité des jugements. C'est la troisième tentative, après celles de Condorcet et de Laplace pour appliquer le calcul des probabilités aux questions juridiques, mais Poisson calcule la probabilité d'un jugement incorrect en vue de protéger la société plus que l'individu. La principale originalité des Recherches sur la probabilité des jugements réside dans l'introduction des statistiques criminelles dans le calcul des probabilités des jugements. Poisson s'appuie sur la constance des résultats statistiques et sur une démonstration mathématique de la loi des grands nombres pour justifier l'utilisation du calcul des probabilités dans le domaine moral. La publication des statistiques criminelles remporte beaucoup de succès auprès de l'administration, des milieux savants et de l'opinion publique. En revanche, l'intrusion des mathématiques dans les questions juridiques proposée par Poisson est rejetée par les scientifiques et les juristes.
Forging Agreement. Engineers of the Ponts et Chaussées and Peasants in the Islands of the Loire River estuary 19th -20th centuries) : Whereas contemporary historiography has primarily analysed the role of the 19th century French State engineers in creating and unifying national territory, this article proposes to call our attention to their project implementation methods at the local level. Within the scope of the great channel-digging project in the Loire River estuary, the article gives an account of the complex interplay of local : actors. We discover that; far from developing relationships exclusively with local notables, the engineers needed to be on good terms with the small, peasants and forged an agreement with them that was indispensable for the continuity of the project:
In 1987, in France, history teachers for the freshman courses in High schools were invited to present the French Revolution by the means of a «problematique » . In this contribution, I’m questioning this approach from an epistemological and didactical point of view. Indeed, the intention of the program’s drafters, since a century, is based on the desire to create links between scientific practices and school practices. Yet, in the case of the French Revolution, the reference to historians’practices, including debates, and to the fact that there are several ways of thinking and interpreting the event, is often considered as contrary to the expectations and ordinary practices at school. Our hypothesis is that, by playing what we call a «problématique » against the problem, we deprive ourselves of thinking about the relationship between historian construction of knowledge and history learning.
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