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Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962)

Author of The Poetics of Space

58+ Works 5,081 Members 60 Reviews 21 Favorited

About the Author

Born in Bar-sur-Aube, France, in 1884, Gaston Bachelard received his doctorate in 1927. He became professor of philosophy at the University of Dijon in 1930, and held the chair in the history and philosophy of science at the University of Paris from 1940 to 1954. In epistemology and the philosophy show more of science, Bachelard espoused a dialectical rationalism, or dialogue between reason and experience. He rejected the Cartesian conception of scientific truths as immutable; he insisted on experiment as well as mathematics in the development of science. Bachelard described the cooperation between the two as a philosophy of saying no, of being ever ready to revise or abandon the established framework of scientific theory to express the new discoveries. In addition to his contributions to the epistemological foundations of science, Bachelard explored the role of reverie and emotion in the expressions of both science and more imaginative thinking. His psychological explanations of the four elements-earth, air, fire, water-illustrate this almost poetic aspect of his philosophy. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Gaston Bachelard

The Poetics of Space (1960) 2,603 copies
The Psychoanalysis of Fire (1964) — Author — 424 copies
The New Scientific Spirit (1934) 147 copies
La flamme d’une chandelle (1961) 115 copies
Intuition of the Instant (1969) 104 copies
Lautréamont (1939) 49 copies
Épistémologie (1971) 43 copies
Drawings for the Bible (1960) 29 copies
Le Rationalisme appliqué (1962) 29 copies
Le matérialisme rationnel (1963) 20 copies
Études (1970) 16 copies
Einstein e i filosofi (2009) — Author — 2 copies
Over het interieur (1992) 2 copies
SeÇmeler (1988) 2 copies
Bachelard 1 copy
Études 1 copy

Associated Works

Critical Theory Since Plato (1971) — Contributor, some editions — 398 copies
Histoire de la campagne française (1932) — Afterword, some editions — 20 copies
The Analog Sea Review: Number Three (2020) — Contributor — 8 copies
The Analog Sea Review: Number Four (2022) — Contributor — 2 copies

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Common Knowledge

Legal name
Bachelard, Gaston Louis Pierre
Birthdate
1884-06-27
Date of death
1962-10-16
Burial location
Paris, France
Gender
male
Nationality
France
Birthplace
Bar-Sur-Aube, France
Place of death
Paris, France
Places of residence
Bar-Sur-Aube, France
Dijon, France
Paris, France
Education
Sorbonne
Occupations
postmaster
professor (physics, philosophy)
Relationships
Bachelard, Suzanne (daughter)
Atlan, Liliane (student)
Organizations
Sorbonne (Chair in History and Philosophy of Science)
University of Dijon
Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques
Awards and honors
Grand Prix national des lettres (1961)
Agent
Thomas S. Kuhn
Alexandre Koyre
Michel Foucault
Georges Canguilhem (successor at the Sorbonne)
Short biography
A founding figure in historically-oriented philosophy of science. Viewed science as a struggle against ideological obstacles, and benefiting from reverie and imagination as much as from Reason. Many Americans first discovered Bachelard's work behind the famous "paradigm shifts" described by Thomas S. Kuhn. Bachelard described the products of science and imagination as epistemological structures -- "all is constructed" -- and the shifts from one answer to another as "ruptures". Alexander Koyre interpreted these as "shifts".

Members

Reviews

Interesting observations hampered by outdated views of gender and a tendency to wax super romantic.
 
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KatrinkaV | 2 other reviews | Dec 16, 2022 |
This book seemed so promising. The title sounds exactly in my interest area. The table of contents is this tempting list: "The House, from Cellar to Garret, The Significance of the Hut", "House and Universe", "Drawers, Chests and Wardrobes", "Nests", "Shells", "Corners", "Miniature", "Intimate Immensity", "The Dialectics of Outside and Inside", "The Phenomenology of Roundness". I should have been warned by the last one though.

The book was wretched. It had very little to do with actual spaces and instead was a philosophical analysis of a random spattering of literary passages having, sometimes ever so vaguely, to do with physical space. To help you experience my pain, I will share a sadly representative passage:
And quite paradoxically, even cubic dimensions have no more meaning, for the reason that a new dimension -- the dimension of intimacy -- has just opened up.
and
I should like to quote a marvelously perceptive fragment ... which offers a veritable theorem of the topo-analysis of intimate space.
and finally,

Since it is my endeavor to multiply all the dialectical shadings by which the imagination confers life upon the simplest images, I should like to note a few references to the offensive capacity of shells.


Ugh.
… (more)
 
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eri_kars | 19 other reviews | Jul 10, 2022 |
This is the third book I've gone through in French, but it's the first one I feel I've legitimately read without having to look up every other word. So, I'm pretty happy about that.
 
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schumacherrr | 2 other reviews | Feb 21, 2022 |
Finally done with this bad boy! A challenging but ultimately rewarding read. Bachelard’s idea about a phenomenology of the imagination, one that tries to examine images with a primal, immemorial source, is utterly mesmerising and fertile (though I do believe poetry/art consists of more than that which Bachelard values most in this book). A lot of it went over my head - it’s super dense - definitely down for a re-read. I don’t think I’ll look at poetry (or elements of reality) in the same way again.… (more)
1 vote
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yuef3i | 19 other reviews | Sep 19, 2021 |

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Statistics

Works
58
Also by
5
Members
5,081
Popularity
#4,921
Rating
4.1
Reviews
60
ISBNs
314
Languages
19
Favorited
21

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