Gaston Bachelard (1884 - 1962)
Related: philosophy of place - French philosophy - prose poetry
"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." --Gaston Bachelard (La formation de l'esprit scientifique, 1934)
Titles: The Poetics of Space (1957)
The Poetics of Space (1957) - Gaston Bachelard
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La psychanalyse du feu / Psychoanalysis of Fire (1938) - Gaston Bachelard [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Biography
Gaston Bachelard (June 27, 1884 – October 16, 1962) was a French philosopher and poet who rose to some of the most prestigious positions in the French academy despite his humble origins. His most important work is in poetics and the philosophy of science. In philosophy of science he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break (coupure épistémologique). He influenced many French philosophers in the latter part of the twentieth century, among them Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_Bachelard [Nov 2006]
Bachelard and Sloterdijk
A Sloterdijk sphere, of sorts, is cited by Bachelard in the story of a character in a deVigny novel reading Descartes’ Meditations: “Sometimes he would take up a sphere set near him, and after turning it between his fingers for a long time, would sink into the most profound daydreams of science.” The child’s marble here becomes a source of knowledge, even if it is daydream knowledge. Sloterdijk’s sphere program has irri- tated many of his readers, perhaps because he needs to have fun, to play with the idea and the text: “When one doesn’t want to know anything about the formation of spheres, one obviously stays clear of dramatic- love affairs; and, those who cross to the other side of the street when encountering Eros exclude all efforts to elucidate the vital shape.” --http://www.presentationhousegall.com/sphere%20booklet.pdf [Jul 2006]
See also: Peter Sloterdijk - Gaston Bachelard
Similarity with Gilles Deleuze [...]
Deleuze was concerned with critiquing rationalism and essentialism. Thus his initial work has some similarity with the work of authors such as Michel Serres and Gaston Bachelard. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze [Feb 2005]Meanwhile, at Amazon
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