Talk:Gaston Bachelard

CharlieMansfield (talk) 09:29, 15 March 2014 (UTC)CharlieMansfield

Untitled

Bachelard was not elected to L’Académie française, are you thinking of Bergson? You can check all past members on their web-site now at http://www.academie-francaise.fr/les-immortels/les-quarante-aujourdhui

comment

I will get a username soon....This article seems to be a little more than a stub at the moment although it is a good start. Considering his phenomenology and the epistemological arguments he made in greater detail would be helpful for English-speaking readers who do not know French and perhaps are not current on the difference between an empirical approach to knowledge and the Cartesian. And does the article not seem to reduce him to "mere" Cartesianism (the direct grasping of truth through Reason (which I am perhaps mistaking for Cartesianism? I'm on a long research trip now and not near a library)), while his phenomenology emphasized the _mediation_ of ideation in all scientific enquiry?--in _The Psychoanalysis of Fire_, for example, he makes the compelling argument that scientific endeavor, while progressively deconstructing the earlier substantive notion of "fire" into "oxidation" has always been accompanied by poetic ideation (such as spontaneous combustion) for scientists themselves. He counters the notion of a ideation- or culture-free science which can and has been taken in many directions by other scholars, although not usually acknowledging his rather early move here. It should be noted that he was making these arguments in the 50s, well before most science studies people believe their critical field to have begun.

He was also involved with arguments against Bergsonism (still generally unknown in the English-speaking world although formerly deeply influential in France) and moved towards seeing the notion of time expressed in Bergsonism (of the deep continuity of experience versus marked "time") as a metaphor which did not fit with either phenomenological or empirical experience. In Dialectique de l´instant (I know I'm writing down the name wrong here) he pushes the notion of the negative and of complete non-existence (not even traces or "radiations" or the thought of nothing) as an absolute pre-condition of any existence or presence, be it of time, space or matter. There is a resonance with Madhyamika Buddhist philosophy here although Bachelard was most likely pushing hard the Hegelian negation. All of these themes could be put into the article, as well as his influence on Bourdieu (who has acknowledged him somewhere), Derrida and other French thinkers.

cleanup tag

This article is rather sloppy. Take for example: "He argued against positivism andNewton had been left behind by the Theory of Relativity." I have no idea what this means, except that the article is in serious need of attention. beekman 14:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Citation needed! This paraphrase of Bachelard makes no sense to me: "To understand the way it works, one has to pass by the detour of scientific knowledge." How do you pass by the detour? Surely you take the detour, or you don't. If you don't take a detour, why mention it? Presumably, Bachelard means that you need to understand how scientific knowledge developed to understand the way a light bulb works.

== He "proned" a non-Cartesian epistemology? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.77.219.253 (talk) 10:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Dubious constructivism

Quotations

• Et, quoi qu’on en dise, dans la vie scientifique, les problèmes ne se posent pas d’eux-mêmes. C’est précisément ce sens du problème qui donne la marque du véritable esprit scientifique. Pour un esprit scientifique, toute connaissance est une réponse à une question. S’il n’y a pas eu de question, il ne peut y avoir de connaissance scientifique. Rien ne va de soi. Rien n’est donné. Tout est construit, Gaston Bachelard (La formation de l'esprit scientifique, 1934)[citation needed]

  "And, irrespective of what one might assume, in the life of a science, problems do not arise by themselves. It is precisely this that marks out a problem as being of the true scientific spirit: all knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself. Nothing is given. All is constructed."[citation needed]

Bibliography

• 1934: Le nouvel esprit scientifique ISBN 2-13-044374-5
• 1938: La formation de l'esprit scientifique: contribution à une psychanalyse de la connaissance objective ISBN 2-7116-1150-7

My comment

The above quote from the main article is self-contradictory, around my bold-face emphasis, as "La formation..." should match with 1938, and "1934" with Le nouvel esprit scientifique, as indicated in Bibliography. Unfortunately, I see to it that this erroneous Wikipedian information has been reproduced again and again. And I cannot help but say that the following two are responsible for this propagation of errors:

1. Wikipedia, and
2. Constructivism.

Should you not agree with me, say nowhere but just here so that I can hear you indeed. --KYPark (talk) 03:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Nothing is given?

At least, if not at most, birth is given to you so that you can enjoy the whole world as much as you can at will. What on earth does Bachelard mean by "Nothing is given"?

Too sick and tired of common Western partiality or sophistry, I should say on this occasion:

"Nothing given, nothing taken."

Or, more precisely:

"Were nothing given, nothing would be taken or constructed."

Does anyone sane really mean any "construction of reality" from nothing, from scratch for sure? Is a dragon or any imaginary, say God, surely such a sheer construction? God as such could not be known at all, I am afraid. Should God be omniscient and omnipotent, is it a human construction? Should constructivism be under control of the church, isn't it an absolute insanity? --KYPark (talk) 06:46, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

George Gusdorf

Bachelard also influenced George Gusdorf; I have a draft article in my personal sandbox. When added, Gusdorf would be a candidate for the list in the opening para ( only fashionable names are listed ??) G. Robert Shiplett 15:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect rendition of a quote

One part of the Section "The role of epistemology in science" reads: "and saw error as only illusion: 'Scientifically, we think the truth as the historical rectification of a long error, and we think experience as the rectification of the common and original illusion (illusion première)'". Saying that Bachelard "saw error as only illusion" would only be justified if his quote said "Truth is the historical rectification of a long error and experience is the rectification of the common and historical illusion". The gap between a general claim about the nature of error (what some would probably call an ontological concern) and Bachelard's statement about the way error works as a concept in the field of science (which some would probably call an epistemological concern) is fundamental to the meaning of Bachelard's work, the conflation between the two is distorting and inadmissible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.230.124.140 (talk) 10:26, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

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i am missing more information on his relationship to psychoanalysis and poetry

I find that the reference to his psychoanalytical and poetic side is quite poor which makes for a one-sided representation of his work. i looked him up to find this information and was disappointed. non of those books are included in the list of english translations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yasemincakmak (talk • contribs) 17:56, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

terrible writing

This section sounds terrible. I'm not sure how to fix it, but I hope someone will:

"Feminist philosopher It should be noted, in his singular career, the concern which he had to ensure the development of his daughter, so much the time was marked by the cleavage of the sexes and the functions. Going against sexist stereotypes, he wanted to make his daughter a scholar. Suzanne would be a mathematician and philosopher and would be able to develop phenomenological and epistemological research of high standing" Amskie (talk) 04:31, 13 August 2022 (UTC)