Gaston Bachelard, Revised and Updated , livre ebook

State University of New York Press - Roch C. Smith

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

114 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Gaston Bachelard, one of twentieth-century France's most original thinkers, is known by English-language readers primarily as the author of The Poetics of Space and several other books on the imagination, but he made significant contributions to the philosophy and history of science. In this book, Roch C. Smith provides a comprehensive introduction to Bachelard's work, demonstrating how his writings on the literary imagination can be better understood in the context of his exploration of how knowledge works in science. After an overview of Bachelard's writings on the scientific mind as it was transformed by relativity, quantum physics, and modern chemistry, Smith examines Bachelard's works on the imagination in light of particular intellectual values Bachelard derived from science. His trajectory from science to a specifically literary imagination is traced by recognizing his concern with what science teaches about how we know, and his increasing preoccupation with questions of being when dealing with poetic imagery. Smith also explores the material and dynamic imagination associated with the four elements—fire, water, air, and earth—and the phenomenology of creative imagination in Bachelard's Poetics of Space, his Poetics of Reverie, and in the fragments of Poetics of Fire.
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Chronology
Introduction

1. The Man and His Times

2. Early Epistemology

3. The New Scientific Mind

4. Fragmentation and the Temptation of Ontology

5. Fire, Water, and the Material Imagination

6. Air, Earth, and the Dynamic Imagination

7. A Phenomenology of the Creative Imagination

8. Toward a Complementary Approach to Criticism

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

Philosophie

Épistémologie

Philosophie de l'esprit

Esthétique et philosophie de l'art

Epistémologie

Philosophy of science

Philosophy

Informations

Publié par	State University of New York Press
Date de parution	03 juin 2016
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781438461939
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1598€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

GASTON BACHELARD
SUNY SERIES IN C ONTEMPORARY F RENCH T HOUGHT
David Pettigrew and François Raffoul, editors
GASTON BACHELARD
Philosopher of Science and Imagination
REVISED AND UPDATED
R OCH C. S MITH
First edition, Gaston Bachelard published by Twayne Publishers, Copyright © 1982 by G. K. Hall Company, Boston, 1982. ISBN 0-8057-6511
Copyright © 1982 by G. K. Hall Company
Frontispiece: Portrait of Bachelard. Courtesy of the Association Internationale Gaston Bachelard/International Gaston Bachelard Association and the Médiathèque de Bar-sur-Aube/Bar-sur-Aube Multimedia Library.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2016 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Jenn Bennett
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Smith, Roch Charles, 1941- author.
Title: Gaston Bachelard : philosopher of science and imagination / Roch C. Smith.
Description: Revised and updated. | Albany : State University of New York Press, [2016] | Series: SUNY series in contemporary French thought | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015042622 (print) | LCCN 2016001682 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438461915 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438461939 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Bachelard, Gaston, 1884-1962.
Classification: LCC B2430.B254 S64 2016 (print) | LCC B2430.B254 (ebook) | DDC 194—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042622
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my grandchildren: Felix, Noah, Frances, and Sae
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Chronology
Introduction
ONE The Man and His Times
TWO Early Epistemology
THREE The New Scientific Mind
FOUR Fragmentation and the Temptation of Ontology
FIVE Fire, Water, and the Material Imagination
SIX Air, Earth, and the Dynamic Imagination
SEVEN A Phenomenology of the Creative Imagination
EIGHT Toward a Complementary Approach to Criticism
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to restate the appreciation I expressed many years ago for the indispensable support I received in establishing what is now the foundation of this book, its first edition:
I would not have completed such an undertaking without the assistance of several colleagues, many of them experts in areas other than my own, who read portions of the manuscript and who endured with infinite patience my many attempts to clarify particular points. Professor Edouard Morot-Sir and Professor Robert B. Rosthal gave me valuable advice on dealing with Bachelard’s epistemology. I am grateful to Professor Richard T. Whitlock for his insight and for his extremely lucid exposition of scientific issues. I wish also to thank Professor James C. Atkinson, who read the chapters on the imagination, and to express my particular gratitude to Professor William O. Goode, who graciously consented to read the entire manuscript, despite many obligations of his own. Any virtues this book may have are largely attributable to their efforts. Its faults are entirely my own. I extend my thanks also to Professor Maxwell A. Smith, who gave me excellent editorial advice while calmly bearing with my delays, to Professor E. Mary McAllester for her helpful comments on the final typescript, and to Professor Douglas W. Alden and Professor Gerald Prince for their assistance in the early, bibliographical stages of this project.
To these thanks I am pleased to add my gratitude to several individuals for their encouragement in preparing this revised and updated edition. First and foremost, I wish to acknowledge the key role Eileen Rizo-Patron played in this endeavor. Her first inquiry several years ago about reprinting my book, her many initiatives on Bachelard in which she kept me involved, as well as her discerning updates on Bachelard scholarship over the years were exceptionally helpful. My special thanks to Rizo-Patron, as well as to Edward S. Casey and Jason Wirth for proposing that my book be re-issued conjunction with their book in progress, Adventures in Phenomenology: Gaston Bachelard . Their thoughtful and enthusiastic support was crucial to the initiation and completion of this revised work.
The new matter in this edition, including the list of Abbreviations, the Introduction, dual references to Bachelard’s original French texts along with their translations, numerous emendations, additional discussion of Bachelard’s posthumous work, updated annotated bibliography, and revised index were made considerably easier by the attentive, clear, and open-minded guidance of Andrew Kenyon, acquisitions editor, and Jenn Bennett, production editor, at SUNY Press. My thanks as well to Professor of Philosophy Terrance C. McConnell, and to my son Roch Smith, Jr., for their careful and thoughtful reading and commentary on drafts of the Introduction. I am also much obliged to Amy Williamsen, Head of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for acquiescing to my requests for copying in these times of budgetary stress.
I am especially pleased to express my heartfelt gratitude to several family members for their irreplaceable inspiration over the many years this work has been in the making. What I said in the first edition continues to apply: This effort would never have been sustained, or even begun, without the constant, often unspoken understanding and encouragement of my wife, Elaine, to whom I am deeply grateful. Her support and her active assistance in improving the manuscript and in proofreading the final draft were invaluable. It is my good fortune to be able to thank her anew for the unique and essential support she constantly and generously provides in this and in many other areas. I dedicated the first edition to my sons, Roch C. Smith, Jr., Paul H. Smith, and Mark J. Smith, and I now restate my appreciation for their continued interest and encouragement. A revised edition is necessarily directed toward the world of the future, where one anticipates books will survive and a multifaceted life of the mind will prosper. With that fond hope, I dedicate this book to my grandchildren, who already inhabit that world. May they make the most of it.
ABBREVIATIONS
References to Bachelard are given parenthetically, using the abbreviations below. Page references to published English translations are followed by references to the French original.
AD Air and Dreams , trans. Edith R. Farrell and C. Frederick Farrell L’Air et les songes (1943)
ARPC L’Activité Rationaliste de la physique contemporaine (1951) [The Rationalist Activity of Contemporary Physics]
DD The Dialectic of Duration , trans. Mary McAllester Jones La Dialectique de la durée (1936)
ECA Essai sur la connaissance approchée (1928) [An Essay on Knowledge by Approximation]
EEPC L’Expérience de l’espace dans la physique contemporaine (1938) [The Experience of Space in Contemporary Physics]
EEPP Étude sur l’évolution d’un problème de physique: La Propagation thermique dans les solides (1928) [A Study on the Evolution of a Physics Problem: Heat Transfer in Solids]
ERR Earth and Reveries of Repose , trans. Mary McAllester Jones La Terre et les rêveries du repos (1948)
ERW Earth and Reveries of Will , trans. Kenneth Haltman La Terre et les rêveries de la volonté (1948)
FC The Flame of a Candle, trans. Joni Caldwell La Flamme d’une chandelle (1961)
FPF Fragments of A Poetics of Fire, trans. Kenneth Haltman Fragments d’une Poétique du feu (1988)
FSM The Formation of the Scientific Mind , trans. Mary McAllester Jones La Formation de l’esprit scientifique (1938)
IA Les Intuitions atomistiques (1933) [Atomistic Intuitions]
II Intuition of the Instant , trans. Eileen Rizo-Patron L’Intuition de l’instant (1932)
L Lautréamont , trans. Robert S. Dupree Lautréamont (1939)
MR Le Matérialisme rationnel (1953) [Rational Materialism]
NSS The New Scientific Spirit, trans. Arthur Goldhammer Le Nouvel Esprit scientifique (1934)
PCCM Le Pluralisme cohérent de la chimie moderne (1932) [The Coherent Pluralism of Modern Chemistry]
PF The Psychoanalysis of Fire , trans. Alan C.M. Ross La Psychanalyse du feu (1938)
PN The Philosophy of No, trans. G.C. Waterston La Philosophie du Non (1940)
PR The Poetics of Reverie , trans. Daniel Russell La Poétique de la rêverie (1960)
PS The Poetics of Space , trans. Maria Jolas (1st ed.) La Poétique de l’espace (1957)
RA Le Rationalisme appliqué (1949) [Applied Rationalism]
VIR La Valeur inductive de la relativité (1929) [The Inductive Quality of Relativity]
WD Water and Dreams , trans. Edith R. Farrell L’Eau et les rêves (1942)
CHRONOLOGY 1884
Born June 27 in Bar-sur-Aube, in Champagne, of parents who are shopkeepers. 1895
Begins secondary studies at Bar-sur-Aube. 1902
Serves as teaching assistant ( répétiteur ) at the College de Sézanne. 1903
Postal clerk at Remiremont. 1906
Begins military service as a telegraphist in the Twelfth Dragoons at Pont-à-Mousson. 1907
Named postal agent at the Gare de L’Est station in Paris. 1909
Student of special mathematics at the Lycée Saint-Louis. 1912
Obtains a licence in mathematical science. Places third in the entrance examination for two openings at the École Supérieure de Télégraphie. 1913
On leave from the post office, he prepares for the examination for engineering students in telegraphy. Obtains a scholarship in mathematics from the Lycée Saint-Louis. 1914
July 8, marries a schoolteacher from