Gaston Bachelard

Course

Secondary studies with the college of Bar-sur-Aube.
1902: Repeater with the college of Sézanne.
1903 to 1905: Military service with the 12th Regiment of Dragons of Pont-à-Mousson.
1907 to 1913: Clerk of the Stations and Telegraphs with Paris.
1913 to 1914: In availability for reason of studies (preparation to the contest of pupils - engineers of the Telegraphs).
Mobilized from August 2nd, 1914 to March 16th, 1919, 38 months of face in the combat units.
Military Cross (quotation with the order of division).
1919-1930: Professor of physics and chemistry to the College of Bar-sur-Aube.
1922: Aggregation of philosophy
1930 to 1940: Professor of philosophy to the Faculty of Arts of Dijon.
1940 to 1955: Professor with the Sorbonne (Pulpit of History and Philosophy of Sciences), director of the Institute of History of Sciences and Technology.
1951: Officer of the Legion of honor.
1959: Commander of the Legion of honor.
1961: National Grand Prix of the Letters.

Its thought

In its essential work: the new scientific spirit (1934), Gaston Bachelard operates a going beyond of the debate Empirisme/Rationalisme, just like Karl Popper, two authors whom one opposes sometimes. For Bachelard, the rational Matérialisme is in the center of an epistemological spectrum whose two ends are consisted the Idéalisme and the Matérialisme. In its work, Bachelard devotes to a severe criticism Inductivisme and Empirisme. The scientific fact is built in the light of theoretical problems. Science is built against the obviousness, against the illusions of immediate knowledge. It is in the sense that Bachelard speaks about a “philosophy about not”. The access to knowledge as the history of sciences is thus marked by a “epistemological cut”, which operates a separation with the prescientific thought. To produce new knowledge, it is thus to cross " obstacles épistémologiques" , according to the expression of Bachelard which also speaks about epistemological Rupture.

For Bachelard, any knowledge is an approximate knowledge: “ Scientifically, one thinks truth like historical correction of a long error, one thinks the experiment like correction of the common illusion and first. ”

Bachelard pleads for a certificated epistemology. He considers that it is necessary to exceed the opposition between Empirisme and Rationalisme: “ No rationality to vacuum, not empiricism décousu ”. The scientific activity supposes the implementation of a “rationalism applied” or a “rational materialism. ”

Its ideas having many affinities with those of Ferdinand Gonseth, it contributed with this one to the creation and radiation of the review Dialectica .

In the second part of its work, Bachelard is devoted to a thorough study of the poetic Imaginaire. In a text remained famous, the waked up sleeper, it declares: “Our membership in the world of the images is stronger, constitutive of our being than our membership in the world of the idées". He pleads then for softnesses of the daydream and lets himself go to the evocations which " inspires to him; the flame of a candle. ”

Quotations

“It is close to the water which I best included/understood than the daydream is a universe in emanation, an odorous breath which leaves the things via a dreamer. If I want to study the life of the images of water, it is necessary for me thus to return their role dominating to the river and the sources of my country. I was born in a country from brooks and rivers, in a Champagne corner undulating, in Vallage, thus named because of the great number of his small valleys. Most beautiful of the residences would be for me with the hollow of a small valley, at the edge of a running water, in the short shade of the willows and the osières. ” ( Water and the Dreams )
“It is by being long enough held on iridescent surface that we will include/understand the price depth. ” ( Water and the Dreams )

“And, no matter what one says some, in the scientific life, the problems do not arise themselves. It is precisely this direction of the problem which gives the mark of the true scientific spirit. For a scientific spirit, any knowledge is an answer to a question. If there no were question, there cannot be scientific knowledge. Nothing goes from oneself. Nothing is given. All is built. ” ( Formation of the scientific spirit , p. 14, Philosophical Librairie J. Vrin, 1970)
“the knowledge of reality is a light which always projects some share of the shades. ” ( Formation of the scientific spirit )

“Above the subject, beyond the object, modern science is based on the project. In the scientific thought, the meditation of the object by the subject always takes the form of the project. ” ( the New scientific Spirit )
“All new truth is born in spite of the obviousness” ( the New scientific Spirit )

“It is the objectivation which dominates objectivity; objectivity is only the product of a correct objectivation. ” ( Studies )

Works

Test on approximate knowledge (1927)
Study on the evolution of a problem of physics. Thermal propagation in the solids. (1928)
the inductive Value of Relativity (1929)
the coherent Pluralism of modern chemistry (1932)
Intuition of the moment (1932)
atomic Intuitions (1933)
the New scientific Spirit (1934). ISBN 2130443745
the Experiment of space in contemporary physics (1937)
Formation of the scientific spirit (1938). ISBN 2711611507
the Psychoanalysis of fire (1938)
Lautréamont (1939)
the Philosophy of the non (1940). ISBN 2130525784
Water and the dreams (1942). ISBN 2253060992
Air and the dreams (1943). ISBN 225306100X
Earth and daydreams of the rest (1946). ISBN 2714302998
Earth and daydreams of the will (1948). ISBN 2714308236
Rationalism applied (1949). ISBN 2130395910
the Dialectical one of the duration (1950). ISBN 213045660x
rational Materialism (1953). ISBN 2130430376
the Poetic one of space (1957)
the Poetic one of the daydream (1960)
the Flame of a candle (1961). ISBN 2130539017

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