This article provides an overview of the gradual development, in the span of two decades (1985-2005), of a theorisation which has come to be known as the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD). It stresses important stages in the dismissing--based on both fact and theory--of some widespread views of teaching and learning, and the establishing of new attitudes towards "the didactic", seen as an anthropological dimension of social life. It emphasises the logic behind the evolution of a "science of the didactic" that, in adapting to the changing nature of its object of study, currently brings to the fore new ideas, among which the concept of "study and research course" (SRC) seems to be most promising.