Our paper deals with the introduction of epistemology and historical perspective in teacher training (both initial and in-service). We mainly focus on the genesis and development of mathematics in a given culture at a given time and on the elaboration of mathematical knowledge that we teach nowadays. First of all, we show, from our personal experience, how mathematics teaching can take into account both its own history and that of discipline. Then, by considering mathematics as human activity, our challenge is to recognize some of the social and civic features of this discipline.
