The present article explores the interaction between History and the Philosophy of Science. In this way, it presents an articulation between the History of Optics and the main characteristics of Gaston Bachelard´s historical philosophy. It emphasizes: firstly, the periods of rupture and discontinuities present in the confrontation between the light corpuscular and wave models; secondly, the permanent error rectification, in the sense that one knowledge abuts another, and the new concept of truth, present in the construction of the conception about the nature of light; thirdly, the notion of historical recurrence, articulated in the analysis of studies about reflection and refraction particularly Arquimedes' polemic of incandescent mirrors; fourthly, the use of analogical reasoning in the structuring of the light wave hypothesis proposed by Huygens; and finally, the rationalismempiricism dialectics in the example of the dual nature of the electron.
History of optics; Bachelardian epistemology; History and the Philosophy of science
