Gaston Bachelard
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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.
Life and work
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 He argued against Comtean positivism that it had been superseded by such scientific developments as the theory of Relativity.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." [#endnote_Lerationalisme] 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.
Bibliography
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
Introduction
- Cristina Chimisso, Gaston Bachelard: Critic of Science and the Imagination, Routledge 2001
Endnotes
- ↑ in Le Rationalisme appliqué (PUF, Paris, 1949, 2e ed. of 1962, p.104ff).
See also
- Louis Althusser's concept of "epistemological break"
- Michel Foucault
- Epistemology
- redirect
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