Gaston Bachelard, Revised and Updated: Philosopher of Science and Imagination (SUNY series in Contemporary French Thought)

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 . Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Abbreviations 14 Chronology 16 Introduction 20 A Final Word on Translations 30 ONE: The Man and His Times 32 The Intellectual Atmosphere 33 Bachelard’s Life 35 Bachelard’s Duality 38 TWO: Early Epistemology 40 Knowledge by Approximation 41 Induction—La Valeur Inductive De La Relativité 46 Coherence—Le Pluralisme Cohérent De La Chimie Moderne 50 THREE: The New Scientific Mind 54 A Transcendent Science 55 Non-euclidian Geometry 56 Non-newtonian Physics 58 Non-cartesian Epistemology 60 The Experience of Space 62 The Psychoanalysis of Objective Knowledge 64 The Epistemological Obstacle 65 Pedagogical Consequences 69 The Epistemological Profile 71 Non-aristotelian Logic 73 The Dialectic of Reason and Matter 74 FOUR: Fragmentation and the Temptation of Ontology 78 The Atom and the Seduction of Realism 79 Toward an Axiomatic Atomism 82 The Instant and the Intuition of Time 83 Instant, Continuity, and the Aesthetic Solution 85 Duration and the Temporal Dialectic 88 Rhythmical Continuity and the Formalizing Consciousness 91 Poetry and the Ontological Temptation 94 FIVE: Fire, Water, and the Material Imagination 98 Poetry and Science as Complementary Opposites 99 Fire and Complexes 101 Beginning a Theory of the Literary Imagination 104 Lautréamont and the Lessons of Science and Poetry 107 Water and Culture Complexes 109 The Material Imagination and Reverie 111 The Question of Method 116 SIX: Air, Earth, and the Dynamic Imagination 118 Air and Dynamic Vertical Imagery 118 SEVEN: A Phenomenology of the Creative Imagination 142 A Nonreductive Philosophy of Reading 143 From Topoanalysis to Reverberation 145 A Phenomenology of Poetic Reverie 148 Animus and Anima 150 The Metaphysics of Reverie 151 An Ineluctable Epistemology 154 Candlelight and Solitary Reverie 157 Reflections from a Fragmented Poetics of Fire 159 EIGHT: Toward a Complementary Approach to Criticism 164 Notes 168 Bibliography 184 Works by Bachelard 184 Secondary Sources 186 Index 196 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, the author 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, the author 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. The author 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 the fragments of Poetics of Fire The Man And His Times -- Early Epistemology -- The New Scientific Mind -- Fragmentation And The Temptation Of Ontology -- Fire, Water, And The Material Imagination -- Air, Earth, And The Dynamic Imagination -- A Phenomenology Of The Creative Imagination. Roch C. Smith. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 137-164) And Index.