Abstract

Based on an expanded analysis of Alexandre Koyré’s historiographical work, this article proposes to analyze the basis of the temporal discontinuity that marks it. Here, an extended analysis of his work implies going beyond his works on the history of sciences, paying attention to those on the history of mystical and philosophical thought. In them, we clearly see the admission of a conception of freedom as the human capacity to construct and modify its own nature. The thesis defended in this article is that such a conception is the foundation of Koyré’s markedly “discontinuist” history, his history of scientific revolutions, whose characters self-form, construct the very bases of their reason, based on their complex historical context. In a sense, this work needs what Roger Chartier said was “Koyré’s way” of thinking about “processes of transformation” in history.

Keywords:
History of historiography; Freedom; Time