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. He mainly taught philosophy of science, inventing the concept of epistemological block and the epistemological break (the word itself is almost never used by Bachelard, but became famous with Althusser). He influenced many French philosophers, among them Michel Foucault.
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Life and work
Bachelard was a postmaster in Bar-Sur-Aube before studying physics and then finally becoming interested in philosophy. He was a professor at Dijon from 1930 to 1940 and then became the inaugural chair of 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 positivism andNewton had been left behind by the Theory of Relativity. This position should not be confused with empiricism.
In the English-speaking world, the connection Bachelard made between psychology and the history of science has been little understood. In fact, Bachelard demonstrated how progress of science could be blocked by certain types of mental patterns, creating the concept of obstacle épistémologique ("epistemological block"). Epistemology was thus to render obvious the mental patterns at use by science, in order to help scientists themselves bypass those epistemological blocks.
Through his concept of "epistemological break", Bachelard underlined the discontinuity at work in history of sciences. A rationalist in the Cartesian sense, he opposed "scientific knowledge" to ordinary knowledge, thus believing that error is only negativity, illusion to dismiss. Epistemology's role, according to Bachelard, it to show the history of the (scientific) production of concepts; those concepts are not only theoric formulaes: they are simultaneously abstract and concrete, impregning technic and pedagogic activity. This explains why "The electric bulb is an object of science's thought... an exemple of an abstract-concrete object." Template:Ref To understand the way it works, one has to pass by the detour of scientific knowledge.
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.
Bachelard's work is often perceived as dealing with many diverse topics such as poetry, dreams, psychoanalysis, and the imagination, rather than the single topic of epistemology. His works on The Psychoanalysis of Fire (1938) and The Poetics of Space (1958) are among the most popular of his works in English.
Bibliography
Template:Quote 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
- Template:Note in Le Rationalisme appliqué (PUF, Paris, 1949, 2e ed. of 1962, p.104 sq.)
See also
Template:Portalparde:Gaston Bachelard es:Gaston Bachelard eo:Gaston Bachelard fr:Gaston Bachelard gl:Gaston Bachelard io:Gaston Bachelard ja:ガストン・バシュラール pl:Gaston Bachelard pt:Gaston Bachelard sk:Gaston Bachelard