So imagine you're a kid and you love playing with toys, right? But have you ever wondered how those toys were made? That's kind of like what historians do, except instead of toys they study things that happened a long time ago.
Now let's say you want to understand how a toy works. You might take it apart and look at all the different pieces, and then try to put them back together again. That's kind of like what French historical epistemologists do. They look at the different ways people thought about things in the past, and try to understand how those ideas evolved over time.
For example, let's say you're trying to figure out how people used to think about the earth and the sun. Some people used to believe that the sun revolved around the earth, while others believed that the earth revolved around the sun. French historical epistemologists would look at all the different arguments and evidence that people used to support each of these ideas, and try to understand why people thought the way they did.
They might also look at how these ideas changed over time. For example, when Galileo first proposed the idea that the earth revolved around the sun, a lot of people thought he was crazy. But over time, people started to accept his ideas, and now we know that he was right.
So that's kind of what French historical epistemology is all about. It's a way of studying the history of ideas and understanding how they evolve over time.