Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard (
June 27,
1884 –
October 16,
1962) was a
French philosopher and
poet who rose to some of the most prestigious positions in the
French academy despite his humble origins. His most important work is in poetics and the
philosophy of science. In philosophy of science he introduced the concepts of
epistemological obstacle and
epistemological break (
coupure épistémologique). He influenced many French philosophers in the latter part of the twentieth century, among them
Michel Foucault and
Louis Althusser.
Bachelard was a
postmaster in
Bar-Sur-Aube, and then studied
physics before finally becoming interested in philosophy. He was a professor at
Dijon from 1930 to 1940 and then became the inaugural chair in
history and philosophy of the
sciences at the
Sorbonne.
Bachelard's studies of the history and philosophy of science in such works as
Le nouvel esprit scientifique ("The New Scientific Mind") (1934) and
La formation de l'esprit scientifique ("The Formation of the Scientific Mind") (1938) were based on his vision of historical
epistemology as a kind of
psychoanalysis of the scientific mind. He argued against Comtean
positivism that it had been superseded by such scientific developments as the
theory of Relativity.
In the English-speaking world, the connection Bachelard made between
psychology and the history of science has been little understood. Bachelard demonstrated how the
progress of science could be blocked by certain types of mental patterns, creating the concept of
obstacle épistémologique ("epistemological obstacle"). One task of epistemology is to make clear the mental patterns at use in science, in order to help scientists overcome the obstacles to knowledge.
Through his concept of "epistemological break", Bachelard underlined the
discontinuity at work in the history of sciences. (The term itself is almost never used by Bachelard, but became famous through
Althusser.) A
rationalist in the
Cartesian sense, he opposed "scientific knowledge" to ordinary knowledge, and held that
error is only
negativity or
illusion. The role of
epistemology is to show the history of the (scientific) production of concepts; those concepts are not just theoretical propositions: they are simultaneously abstract and
concrete, pervading
technical and
pedagogical activity. This explains why "The electric bulb is an object of scientifical thought… an example of an abstract-concrete object." To understand the way it works, one has to pass by the detour of scientific knowledge. Epistemology is thus not a general philosophy that aims at justifying scientific reasoning. Instead it produces regional
histories of science.
Thomas S. Kuhn used Bachelard's notion of "epistemological rupture" (
coupure or
rupture épistémologique) as re-interpreted by
Alexandre Koyré to develop his theory of
paradigm shifts;
Althusser and
Michel Foucault also drew upon Bachelard's epistemology.
In addition to epistemology, Bachelard's work deals with many other topics, including
poetry,
dreams,
psychoanalysis, and the imagination.
The Psychoanalysis of Fire (1938) and
The Poetics of Space (1958) are among the most popular of his works.
His works include:
*
1932:
L'intuition de l'instant*
1934:
Le nouvel esprit scientifique ISBN 2130443745*
1938:
La formation de l'esprit scientifique ISBN 2711611507*
1938:
La psychanalyse du feu*
1940:
La philosophie du non ISBN 2130525784*
1942:
L'eau et les rêves ISBN 2253060992*
1943:
L'air et les songes*
1946:
La terre et les rêveries du repos ISBN 2714302998*
1948:
La terre et les rêveries de la volonté*
1949:
Le Rationalisme appliqué (PUF, Paris)
*
1958:
La poétique de l'espace English translation ISBN 0807064734*
1960:
La poétique de la rêverie*
1961:
La flamme d'une chandelle ISBN 2130539017*Cristina Chimisso,
Gaston Bachelard: Critic of Science and the Imagination, Routledge 2001
* in
Le Rationalisme appliqué (PUF, Paris, 1949, 2e ed. of 1962, p.104ff).
*
Louis Althusser's concept of "epistemological break"*
Michel Foucault*
Epistemology
