By Albert Ribas
(in Jaime D. Parra (Coord.), La symbology. Great figures of the Science of Symbols, Barcelona: Montesinos, 2001, pp. 121-129) Abstract
French philosopher Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) focused his early work in the study of history and philosophy of science. Of this field is to develop an original contribution in the field of philosophy of the imagination. In this aspect include work on the imagination of matter (fire, air, water, earth), establishing a fruitful line of communication between epistemology and poetics. Méthode
, Méthode, me veux-tu? Tu sais j'ai sleeve rather than du fruit de l'unconscious
("Method, Method What do you want from me? You know I've eaten the fruit of the unconscious ")
Jules Laforgue
Introduction
Gaston Bachelard's work resists classification. And for the same reason, probably, is difficult to consider leading a school of philosophy - although their influence has been extensive. Bachelard would have many followers, but would not know identify 'Bachelard' strict.
The reason is a feature of his work, which is an apparent dispersion, an apparent lack of systematicity. It seems that, similarly to the imagination or fantasy -Which are the subject of his research, the subject of his work refuses to be fixed in a rigid grid, in a predetermined method to allow fans easy transpositions. His work, therefore, is made more meandering, very rich suggestions, which require new directions that are not simple applications of the original.
This apparent lack of method we have reflected in the quotation at the beginning of these lines, citing that Bachelard had highlighted at the top of one of his last works, The poetics of reverie (La poétique of reverie, 1960). Yet, seen from the original meaning of the term "method" that is way, yes there is a path containing its own consistency. As has often been stressed, the "method" is the path once traveled, against the claim of a prior determination of him, which is why so many methodologies are rhetorical constructions bad afterwards.
Travel Consistency Bachelard is not, therefore, the coherence of a previous design, but the deployment of ideas that are drawing new fields of application, new objects of reflection. Specifically, and to put it very briefly, Bachelard moves from the realm of philosophy of science, epistemology, the field of poetics, a philosophy of imagination. Science and poetry are so different areas seems to have two Bachelard, but just the effort and contribution of Bachelard is to relate them.
Reflection on science mutations
Bachelard, BA in Mathematics in 1912, Professor of Physics and Natural Sciences, and graduated in Philosophy in 1920, is primarily interested in the history and philosophy of science . His doctoral thesis and his first publications dealing with these issues. For example, in the new scientific spirit (Le nouvel esprit scientifique, 1934) and especially after the formation of the scientific spirit (La formation de l'esprit scientifique, 1938) explores the epistemological consequences of what has been a fundamental change in the twentieth century science. Einstein's relativistic physics has replaced the Newtonian thought patterns extracted from the mechanistic (philosophically formulated in Cartesian epistemology) are no longer valid. In this context, Bachelard coined the notion of 'cut' or 'break' epistemological advances in science require not only an accumulation, require a break with the mental habits of the past. Progress will occur, thus overcoming resistance and prejudice, those who belong to the conceptual framework and the dominant images in the epistemological configuration that must be overcome. This notion corresponds roughly to what will later tell Kuhn on paradigm shifts.
But Bachelard's reflection goes beyond the identification of successive paradigms from the point of view of its historical appearance. In a way, exploring the conditions of scientific thought is its meta-historical reflection. The intention of clearly formulated in his Psychoanalysis of Fire (La psychanalyse du feu, 1938), saying it aims to find "the action of unconscious values \u200b\u200bat the very basis of empirical and scientific knowledge."
It came
already announced intention to reflect on the implications of new physics. For example, the claim of an individual independent observer and the observed object is not a valid assumption in the light of the uncertainty principle formulated by Heisenberg. Inevitably, according to this principle of quantum physics, the observer changes the observed. The same could be said about the alleged expiration of the mechanical philosophy that seeks to reduce everything to figure and movement. But this finding is not only the result of a historical episode in the development of the science of this century. Bachelard generalizes beyond that historical context. Hence, the derivation from the more particularly the expiration of the mechanical philosophy as general-to-find features unconscious in scientific knowledge itself.
The study of the unconscious goes beyond a mere psychologism psychologism that consisted in describing the conditions or mental limitations that moves the scientist in his intellectual environment. The derivation is more profound: on the conviction that you have to break with the widely held view is a clear separation between a subject of contemplation and an indifferent universe or independent of that look. Conviction is an ontological one: the image created actually the image is prior to thought. There is thus a continuum between what we call 'real' and what we call 'unrealistic', the reality is also called a construction made from images.
And that program, a philosophy of imagination, is the developer of that other Bachelard, another no longer the same.
The philosophy of the imagination
That is one Bachelard, the epistemologist and philosopher of the imagination, suggests an important fact: in 1938 published The formation of the scientific spirit, with the subtitle significant contribution to psychoanalysis knowledge objective, and in the same year also publishes the aforementioned Psychoanalysis of Fire. The latter work opens the cycle of studies on the imagination of matter. Then in later years will continue crossing the scientific works of philosophy and epistemology with the works of the imagination, but certainly the second highlight of the first type.
From these studies on the imaginary, the said cycle stand on the imagination of matter through the four elements. Beginning in the fire element is supplemented by other works on the remaining elements: Water in Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter (L'air et les songes: essai sur l'imagination of the matière, 1942), the air in the air and dreams: an essay on the imagination of movement (L'air et les songes: essai sur l'imagination du mouvement, 1943) and land on Earth and reveries of will (La terre et les Reverie the volonté, 1948) and Land and dreams of the rest (La terre et les Rêveries du repos, 1948).
A first indication of intention is given to us Bachelard and the use of the term "song" and "Reverie." The first not only means 'dream': French is also a way of thinking and remembering ("songer à quelqu'un "is" thinking about someone '). The second, translated by' dream 'or' dream ', also wishes to emphasize that state between the conscious and unconscious, real and imagined, that is a state of doze. In this intermediate producer reveals the value of the images. In considering, therefore, the imaginary (songes and REVERIE) of the four elements are highlighted throughout a sequence of figures, of what Bachelard called complex, poetic images of unconscious mental structures, as is the perception, construction of reality. are different patterns of thinking and organizing the world imagine.
An example will be enlightening. When analyzing the water element, Bachelard considers its relationship with the earth element, a mixture of both: the notion of moldable paste, exemplified in the clay. And then Bachelard emphasizes the essential difference between what would be the exterior look that mass, which leads to contemplative perspective and geometric, and what would be the manual intervention in the pasta. Is the difference between the point of view of idle hand and point of view of the working hand. The first emphasizes that distance that Bachelard wants to abolish. The key epistemological conviction against a supposedly science outside the object-is exemplified in the image of the model of clay here in key philosophy of the imagination.
And like this, there are plenty of other images, links, resonances, which display rules to reality. To discover them is to follow those dreams of matter. This is the program developed in this series on the four elements. What stands out in this line followed by Bachelard is the new emphasis precisely on the subject, compared to what was most common, is taking shape as the alleged object of imagination. It would appear that the subject is an area that belongs more properly to the "reality" as the form would be the proper scope of the imagination. Bachelard subverts this classification, stating for example that "the subject is unaware of the way." That is, if it delves into the images must be restored to its material constitution.
In short, we must see Bachelard as one of the most profound and original contributions to the philosophy of this century, particularly in the situation of European philosophy between the wars, when on the scene a new consideration of the unconscious aspects of variables mythical reference to the imagination. All this represents a small revolution in the fields of symbolism, aesthetics. But the added merit of Bachelard's the field have linked this with the philosophy of science, breaking a barrier that seemed insurmountable.
biographical and bibliographical note
Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), after studying mathematics and physics, a doctorate in philosophy with a thesis Essai sur la connaissance approchée (1927). Until 1938, we can speak of a stage focused on the study of philosophy of science. In 1940 he takes over the chair of History and Philosophy of Science at the Faculty of Arts at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1938 he started his series on the four elements. With him, they can also highlighted the philosophy of no (La philosophie du non, 1940), Lautréamont (1939), The Poetics of Space (La poétique de l'espace, 1957), The poetics of reverie (La poétique of reverie, 1960), and the epistemological dimension The rational materialism (Le materialism rationnel, 1953) and posthumously Epistemology (Epistemology, 1971).
From:
http://www.inicia.es/de/aribas/bache.html
Image taken from:
http://www.galerie-ba.com/artistes/michaux/41 "Michaux-bd.jpg
(in Jaime D. Parra (Coord.), La symbology. Great figures of the Science of Symbols, Barcelona: Montesinos, 2001, pp. 121-129) Abstract
French philosopher Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) focused his early work in the study of history and philosophy of science. Of this field is to develop an original contribution in the field of philosophy of the imagination. In this aspect include work on the imagination of matter (fire, air, water, earth), establishing a fruitful line of communication between epistemology and poetics. Méthode
, Méthode, me veux-tu? Tu sais j'ai sleeve rather than du fruit de l'unconscious
("Method, Method What do you want from me? You know I've eaten the fruit of the unconscious ")
Jules Laforgue
Introduction
Gaston Bachelard's work resists classification. And for the same reason, probably, is difficult to consider leading a school of philosophy - although their influence has been extensive. Bachelard would have many followers, but would not know identify 'Bachelard' strict.
The reason is a feature of his work, which is an apparent dispersion, an apparent lack of systematicity. It seems that, similarly to the imagination or fantasy -Which are the subject of his research, the subject of his work refuses to be fixed in a rigid grid, in a predetermined method to allow fans easy transpositions. His work, therefore, is made more meandering, very rich suggestions, which require new directions that are not simple applications of the original.
This apparent lack of method we have reflected in the quotation at the beginning of these lines, citing that Bachelard had highlighted at the top of one of his last works, The poetics of reverie (La poétique of reverie, 1960). Yet, seen from the original meaning of the term "method" that is way, yes there is a path containing its own consistency. As has often been stressed, the "method" is the path once traveled, against the claim of a prior determination of him, which is why so many methodologies are rhetorical constructions bad afterwards.
Travel Consistency Bachelard is not, therefore, the coherence of a previous design, but the deployment of ideas that are drawing new fields of application, new objects of reflection. Specifically, and to put it very briefly, Bachelard moves from the realm of philosophy of science, epistemology, the field of poetics, a philosophy of imagination. Science and poetry are so different areas seems to have two Bachelard, but just the effort and contribution of Bachelard is to relate them.
Reflection on science mutations
Bachelard, BA in Mathematics in 1912, Professor of Physics and Natural Sciences, and graduated in Philosophy in 1920, is primarily interested in the history and philosophy of science . His doctoral thesis and his first publications dealing with these issues. For example, in the new scientific spirit (Le nouvel esprit scientifique, 1934) and especially after the formation of the scientific spirit (La formation de l'esprit scientifique, 1938) explores the epistemological consequences of what has been a fundamental change in the twentieth century science. Einstein's relativistic physics has replaced the Newtonian thought patterns extracted from the mechanistic (philosophically formulated in Cartesian epistemology) are no longer valid. In this context, Bachelard coined the notion of 'cut' or 'break' epistemological advances in science require not only an accumulation, require a break with the mental habits of the past. Progress will occur, thus overcoming resistance and prejudice, those who belong to the conceptual framework and the dominant images in the epistemological configuration that must be overcome. This notion corresponds roughly to what will later tell Kuhn on paradigm shifts.
But Bachelard's reflection goes beyond the identification of successive paradigms from the point of view of its historical appearance. In a way, exploring the conditions of scientific thought is its meta-historical reflection. The intention of clearly formulated in his Psychoanalysis of Fire (La psychanalyse du feu, 1938), saying it aims to find "the action of unconscious values \u200b\u200bat the very basis of empirical and scientific knowledge."
It came
already announced intention to reflect on the implications of new physics. For example, the claim of an individual independent observer and the observed object is not a valid assumption in the light of the uncertainty principle formulated by Heisenberg. Inevitably, according to this principle of quantum physics, the observer changes the observed. The same could be said about the alleged expiration of the mechanical philosophy that seeks to reduce everything to figure and movement. But this finding is not only the result of a historical episode in the development of the science of this century. Bachelard generalizes beyond that historical context. Hence, the derivation from the more particularly the expiration of the mechanical philosophy as general-to-find features unconscious in scientific knowledge itself.
The study of the unconscious goes beyond a mere psychologism psychologism that consisted in describing the conditions or mental limitations that moves the scientist in his intellectual environment. The derivation is more profound: on the conviction that you have to break with the widely held view is a clear separation between a subject of contemplation and an indifferent universe or independent of that look. Conviction is an ontological one: the image created actually the image is prior to thought. There is thus a continuum between what we call 'real' and what we call 'unrealistic', the reality is also called a construction made from images.
And that program, a philosophy of imagination, is the developer of that other Bachelard, another no longer the same.
The philosophy of the imagination
That is one Bachelard, the epistemologist and philosopher of the imagination, suggests an important fact: in 1938 published The formation of the scientific spirit, with the subtitle significant contribution to psychoanalysis knowledge objective, and in the same year also publishes the aforementioned Psychoanalysis of Fire. The latter work opens the cycle of studies on the imagination of matter. Then in later years will continue crossing the scientific works of philosophy and epistemology with the works of the imagination, but certainly the second highlight of the first type.
From these studies on the imaginary, the said cycle stand on the imagination of matter through the four elements. Beginning in the fire element is supplemented by other works on the remaining elements: Water in Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter (L'air et les songes: essai sur l'imagination of the matière, 1942), the air in the air and dreams: an essay on the imagination of movement (L'air et les songes: essai sur l'imagination du mouvement, 1943) and land on Earth and reveries of will (La terre et les Reverie the volonté, 1948) and Land and dreams of the rest (La terre et les Rêveries du repos, 1948).
A first indication of intention is given to us Bachelard and the use of the term "song" and "Reverie." The first not only means 'dream': French is also a way of thinking and remembering ("songer à quelqu'un "is" thinking about someone '). The second, translated by' dream 'or' dream ', also wishes to emphasize that state between the conscious and unconscious, real and imagined, that is a state of doze. In this intermediate producer reveals the value of the images. In considering, therefore, the imaginary (songes and REVERIE) of the four elements are highlighted throughout a sequence of figures, of what Bachelard called complex, poetic images of unconscious mental structures, as is the perception, construction of reality. are different patterns of thinking and organizing the world imagine.
An example will be enlightening. When analyzing the water element, Bachelard considers its relationship with the earth element, a mixture of both: the notion of moldable paste, exemplified in the clay. And then Bachelard emphasizes the essential difference between what would be the exterior look that mass, which leads to contemplative perspective and geometric, and what would be the manual intervention in the pasta. Is the difference between the point of view of idle hand and point of view of the working hand. The first emphasizes that distance that Bachelard wants to abolish. The key epistemological conviction against a supposedly science outside the object-is exemplified in the image of the model of clay here in key philosophy of the imagination.
And like this, there are plenty of other images, links, resonances, which display rules to reality. To discover them is to follow those dreams of matter. This is the program developed in this series on the four elements. What stands out in this line followed by Bachelard is the new emphasis precisely on the subject, compared to what was most common, is taking shape as the alleged object of imagination. It would appear that the subject is an area that belongs more properly to the "reality" as the form would be the proper scope of the imagination. Bachelard subverts this classification, stating for example that "the subject is unaware of the way." That is, if it delves into the images must be restored to its material constitution.
In short, we must see Bachelard as one of the most profound and original contributions to the philosophy of this century, particularly in the situation of European philosophy between the wars, when on the scene a new consideration of the unconscious aspects of variables mythical reference to the imagination. All this represents a small revolution in the fields of symbolism, aesthetics. But the added merit of Bachelard's the field have linked this with the philosophy of science, breaking a barrier that seemed insurmountable.
biographical and bibliographical note
Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), after studying mathematics and physics, a doctorate in philosophy with a thesis Essai sur la connaissance approchée (1927). Until 1938, we can speak of a stage focused on the study of philosophy of science. In 1940 he takes over the chair of History and Philosophy of Science at the Faculty of Arts at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1938 he started his series on the four elements. With him, they can also highlighted the philosophy of no (La philosophie du non, 1940), Lautréamont (1939), The Poetics of Space (La poétique de l'espace, 1957), The poetics of reverie (La poétique of reverie, 1960), and the epistemological dimension The rational materialism (Le materialism rationnel, 1953) and posthumously Epistemology (Epistemology, 1971).
From:
http://www.inicia.es/de/aribas/bache.html
Image taken from:
http://www.galerie-ba.com/artistes/michaux/41 "Michaux-bd.jpg
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