Gaston Bachelard

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Lore & Background

Bachelard was born in Bar-sur-Aube, France in 1884. He was a postal clerk in Bar-sur-Aube, and then studied physics and chemistry before finally becoming interested in philosophy. To obtain his doctorate in 1927, he wrote two theses: the main one, Essai sur la connaissance approchée, under the direction of Abel Rey, and the complementary one, Étude sur l'évolution d'un problème de physique: la propagation thermique dans les solides, supervised by Léon Brunschvicg. He first taught from 1902 to 1903 at the college of Sézanne, but turned away from teaching to consider a career in telegraphy. Discharged in March 1919 and unemployed, Bachelard searched and obtained a job in October as a professor of physics and chemistry at the college of Bar-sur-Aube. At the age of thirty-six he began a completely unexpected philosophical career. Starting decisively in 1922, he acquired the title of Doctor of Letters at the Sorbonne in 1927. He became a lecturer at the Faculty of Letters of Dijon from October 1927, but remained at the college of Bar-sur-Aube until 1930. From 1930 to 1940 he was a professor at the University of Dijon and then was appointed chair in the history and philosophy of science at the University of Paris. On 25 August 1937 he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor. He became a professor at the Sorbonne from 1940 to 1954, holding the chair of the history and philosophy of science, where he succeeded Abel Rey. In 1958, he became a member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium. Bachelard married Jeanne Rossi, a schoolteacher, in 1914. Jeanne died in June 1920, and Bachelard raised his daughter alone. He wanted to make his daughter, Suzanne, a scholar. Suzanne became a mathematician and philosopher involved in phenomenological and epistemological research of high standing. In 1962, he died in Paris.

Reader's Guide

Bachelard's studies of the history and philosophy of science in such works as Le nouvel esprit scientifique (1934) and La formation de l'esprit scientifique (1938) were based on his vision of historical epistemology as a kind of psychoanalysis of the scientific mind. He demonstrated how the progress of science could be blocked by certain types of mental patterns, creating the concept of epistemological obstacle. He was critical of Auguste Comte's positivism, which considered science as a continual progress. To Bachelard, scientific developments such as Einstein's theory of relativity demonstrated the discontinuous nature of the history of sciences. Through his concept of 'epistemological break,' Bachelard underlined the discontinuity at work in the history of sciences. He showed that new theories integrated old theories in new paradigms, changing the sense of concepts (for instance, the concept of mass, used by Newton and Einstein in two different senses). One of his main theses in The New Scientific Mind was that modern sciences had replaced the classical ontology of the substance with an 'ontology of relations.' In non-Cartesian epistemology, there is no 'simple substance' as in Cartesianism, but only complex objects built by theories and experiments and continuously improved. These themes led Bachelard to support a sort of constructivist epistemology. In addition to epistemology, Bachelard's work deals with many other topics, including poetry, dreams, psychoanalysis, and the imagination. The Psychoanalysis of Fire (1938) and The Poetics of Space (1958) are among the most popular of his works.

Did You Know?

• Bachelard was a postal clerk in Bar-sur-Aube before studying physics and chemistry and finally becoming interested in philosophy.
• He obtained his doctorate in 1927 with two theses: one on knowledge directed by Abel Rey, and one on thermal propagation in solids supervised by Léon Brunschvicg.
• He began his philosophical career at age thirty-six, after working as a professor of physics and chemistry at the college of Bar-sur-Aube.
• Bachelard was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor on 25 August 1937.
• His daughter Suzanne became a mathematician and philosopher involved in phenomenological and epistemological research.