Gaston Bachelard

Appearing in English for the first time, Intuition of the Instant—Bachelard’s first metaphysical meditation on time and its moral implications—was written in 1932 in the wake of Husserl’s lectures on streaming time-consciousness, Heidegger’s Being and Time, and Henri Bergson’s philosophy of the élan vital. A culmination of Bachelard’s earlier studies in scientific epistemology, this work builds the epistemic framework that would lead theorists of all stripes to advance knowledge by breaking with accepted modes of thought. Intuition of the Instant sows the seeds of Bachelard’s future poetics, most notably in the essay “Poetic Instant and Metaphysical Instant” (1939)—included in this volume, along with an excerpt from Jean Lescure’s lecture “Introduction to Bachelard’s Poetics” (1966). Eileen Rizo-Patron’s translation offers a key to Bachelard’s subsequent works on science, time, and imagination, which remain epistemological touchstones.

Appearing in English for the first time, Intuition of the Instant—Bachelard’s first metaphysical meditation on time and its moral implications—was written in 1932 in the wake of Husserl’s lectures on streaming time-consciousness, Heidegger’s Being and Time, and Henri Bergson’s philosophy of the élan vital. A culmination of Bachelard’s earlier studies in scientific epistemology, this work builds the epistemic framework that would lead theorists of all stripes to advance knowledge by breaking with accepted modes of thought. Intuition of the Instant sows the seeds of Bachelard’s future poetics, most notably in the essay “Poetic Instant and Metaphysical Instant” (1939)—included in this volume, along with an excerpt from Jean Lescure’s lecture “Introduction to Bachelard’s Poetics” (1966). Eileen Rizo-Patron’s translation offers a key to Bachelard’s subsequent works on science, time, and imagination, which remain epistemological touchstones.

The famous French scientist-psychologist-literary critic provides a virtual bestiary for depth psychology and literary criticism in his study of Isidore Ducasse, known by the pen-name Lautr amont. Includes essays by James Hillman "Bachelard's Lautreamont, or Psychoanalysis without a Patient," and Robert Scott Dupree, "Bachelard as Literary Critic." Bachelard's only book devoted to a single author/poet. 152 pages, indexed. THE BACHELARD TRANSLATIONS are the inspiration of Joanne H. Stroud, Director of Publications for The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, who in 1981 contracted with Jos Corti to publish in English the untranslated works of Bachelard on the imagination. Gaston Bachelard is acclaimed as one of the most significant modern French thinkers. From 1929 to 1962 he authored twenty-three books addressing his dual concerns, the philosophy of science and the analysis of the imagination of matter. The influence of his thought can be felt in all disciplines of the humanities - art, architecture, literature, language, poetics, philosophy, and depth psychology. His teaching career included posts at the College de Bar-sur-Aube, the University of Dijon, and from 1940 to 1962 the chair of history and philosophy of science at the Sorbonne. One of the amphitheaters of the Sorbonne is called "L'Amphi Gaston Bachelard," an honor Bachelard shared with Descartes and Richelieu. He received the Grand Prix National Lettres in 1961-one of only three philosophers ever to have achieved this honor. The influence of his thought can be felt in all disciplines of the humanities-art, architecture, literature, poetics, psychology, philosophy, and language.

Bachelard, in Frankreich ein eigenwilliger Klassiker und berühmter Lehrer einer Generation, zu der Foucault und Barthes gehören, geht in seiner "konkreten Ästhetik" den Formen und Bildern nach, die die flackende Flamme einer Kerze bis in die "Epoche des verwalteten Lichts" wirft, um über diese Bilder zu einer Theorie der dichterischen Einbildungskraft zu kommen.

Bachelard demonstriert seine Intention, Poesie und Wissenschaft zu zwei komplementären Bereichen zu machen, in sieben Kapiteln über das Feuer, das wie kein anderes Phänomen Einbildungskraft und wissenschaftliches Interesse entfacht hat.

Bachelards Interesse gilt den einfachen poetischen Bildern, die den Leser eines Gedichts oder eines Romans beunruhigen, ihn nicht mehr loslassen, ?in ihm Wurzeln schlagen?. Woher rührt diese Macht des Bildes? Die Psychoanalyse hat - z. B. mittels der Traumdeutung - versucht, das Bild intellektuell aufzulösen und auf einen verborgenen Wunsch zurückzuführen. ? Der Analytiker erklärt die Blume aus dem Dünger?, hält Bachelard dem entgegen; seiner Auffassung nach ist das poetische Bild etwas absolut Ursprüngliches, die Einbildungskraft daher eines der tiefsten menschlichen Vermögen. Um diese These zu untermauern, untersucht Bachelard einfache, zumeist positiv besetzte Bilder des Raumes, die in den Dichtungen aller Sprachen häufig wiederkehren. Zunächst Bilder intimer Räumlichkeit: das Haus, der Schlupfwinkel, die Höhle; sodann die ? Häuser der Dinge?: Schubladen, Truhen, Nester und Muscheln; schließlich der Gegensatz von Drinnen und Draußen und das Bild der Rundheit. In unakademischer, selbst wiederum bildhafter Sprache begründet damit Bachelard ein Verfahren vergleichender Literaturwissenschaft, das prinzipiell von jedem Leser nachvollziehbar ist: eine Theorie des ? Widerhalls? von Literatur im Geiste des Lesers.

Dans ce premier ecrit qu'est sa these principale (1927), Bachelard etudie le processus d'affinement de la connaissance scientifique. Le role de la connaissance approchee est defini dans les sciences experimentales, ou le degre de precision, confronte au contingent et a l'indivisible, atteint necessairement une limite; ainsi que dans les sciences mathematiques qui, soumises a ce meme fractionnement epistemologique et ontologique , se pretent neanmoins a une approximation illimitee, puisque l'infini mathematique permet de creer toujours de nouveaux etres irrationnels assurant la continuite de l'indefini des nombres rationnels. Par consequent, on atteint jamais qu'un fait rectifie et provisoire. La connaissance de la realite se verifie progressivement a chacune de ses acquisitions, et cette rectification constitue la veritable realite epistemologique, car elle exprime la pensee dans son dynamisme profond: l'approximation, c'est l'objectivation inachevee, mais c'est l'objectivation prudente, feconde, vraiment rationnelle puisqu'elle est a la fois consciente de son insuffisance et de son progres . En marge des debats du pragmatisme, les concepts de realite et de verite sont investis d'un sens nouveau par une philosophie de l'inexact.

Sans proposer une simple histoire de la chimie, cet ouvrage de Gaston Bachelard se propose de developper, a l'occasion des progres de la chimie moderne, une lecture philosophique de cette evolution, autour d'une idee articulant dialectiquement deux directions distinctes: la pensee du chimiste semble osciller entre le pluralisme d'une part et la reduction de la pluralite d'autre part . C'est dire que Bachelard se propose ici de caracteriser le soubassement philosophique de la pensee epistemologique promue par la recente evolution de la chimie moderne. Si la decouverte scientifique est liee, dans le cas de la chimie, a la mise au jour de nouvelles substances, et ainsi au developpement d'un pluralisme des substances, la tache du philosophe consiste des lors a montrer que derriere tout pluralisme on peut reconnaitre un systele de coherence . C'est cette these majeure que deploie cet ouvrage dans une progression qui, du probleme philosophique du divers, mene, en passant par une analyse detaillee de l'apport considerable de Mendeleiev a la chimie moderne, a l'idee philosophique d'une harmonie substantielle.

In this, his last significant work, an admired French philosopher provides extraordinary meditations on the relations between the imagining consciousness and the world, positing the notion of "reverie" as its most dynamic point of reference. In his earlier book, "The Poetics of Space, "Bachelard considered several kinds of "praiseworthy space" conducive to the flow of poetic imagery. In "Poetics of Reverie "he considers the absolute origins of that imagery: language, sexuality, childhood, the Cartesian ego, and the universe. Approaching the psychology of wonder from the phenomenological viewpoint, Bachelard demonstrates the aurgentative "potential "of all that awareness. Thus he distinguishes what is merely a phenomenon of relaxation from the kind of reverie which "poetry puts on the right track, the track of expanding consciousness"

J'etudie Je ne suis que le sujet du verbe etudier. Penser je n'ose. Avant de penser, il faut etudier. Seuls les philosophes pensent avant d'etudier . Dans son dernier livre La flamme d'une chandelle, Gaston Bachelard s'est defini comme un etudiant. Nous n'avons pas cru lui etre infidele en presentant ces Etudes reflechies, qui portent trace d'itineraires de recherche et de problematiques. Sont ici rassembles les textes suivants: Noumene et microphysique, La critique du concept de frontiere epistemologique, Idealisme discursif, Lumiere et substance et Le monde comme caprice et miniature.

- Bachelard] is neither a self-confessed and tortured atheist like Satre, nor, like Chardin, a heretic combining a belief in God with a proficiency in modern science. But, within the French context, he is almost as important as they are because he has a pseudo-religious force, without taking a stand on religion. To define him as briefly as possible - he is a philosopher, with a professional training in the sciences, who devoted most of the second phase of his career to promoting that aspect of human nature which often seems most inimical to science: the poetic imagination ...- - J. G. Weightman, The New York Times Review of Books