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A non-Bergsonian Bachelard

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Abstract

In this essay, Perraudin sets out to contrast the competing philosophies of time and imagination of two major French thinkers of the twentieth century: Henri Bergson (1859–1941) and Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962). Despite Bachelard’s polemical approach vis-à-vis philosophical tradition in his works on epistemology and poetics, his accounts of time and imagination have been shown by several critics to be significantly influenced and inspired by his predecessor. Perraudin nonetheless argues that Bachelard’s critique of Bergson’s theory of continuous temporality opens the way—through the subtle dialectics of his “philosophy of no”—to more prolific, and as yet untapped, therapeutic possibilities in our understanding of time and imagination than Bergson’s accounts of continuum of the élan vital had managed to reveal.

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Notes

  1. Bachelard (1928).

  2. Bachelard (1988, p. 7).

  3. Mansuy (1967, pp. 257, 325).

  4. Pire (1967, p. 190).

  5. Quillet (1964 p. 118).

  6. L’Évolution de la mémoire et de la notion du temps (Paris, 1928, p. 19), cited in Bachelard (1936, p. 50).

  7. Bergson (1889).

  8. Bergson (1907, p. 3).

  9. See Bergson’s second lecture on “The perception of change” in Bergson (1934, pp. 121–127).

  10. Bergson (1907, p. 2).

  11. Bergson (1934, p. 6).

  12. Translator’s note: This parenthetical translation of Bergson’s line from La Pensée et le mouvant (p. 3) is intended to reflect Perraudin’s emphasis on the productive role of Bergsonian duration. In The creative mind (p. 2), Mabelle Andison offers a different translation: “Time is what is happening, and more than that, it is what causes everything to happen”. A third option is to use the continuous mode of the passive voice for “se fait,” as in “time is what is being made” (cf. Matter and memory, p. 150). However, Perraudin reads Bergson’s time (duration), in this case, not as a passive happening but as being’s reflexive (if impersonal) making.

  13. Bergson (1907, p. 3).

  14. Ibid.

  15. Bergson (1907, p. 11), Perraudin’s emphasis.

  16. Bergson (1907, p. 275).

  17. Bergson (1934, pp. 131–132).

  18. Bachelard (1932/1992, p. 33).

  19. Backès (1970, No. 42, p. 69).

  20. Cf. Bachelard (1938a, chapter VIII)

  21. Cf. Bachelard (1938b, chapter V).

  22. Bachelard (1940, p. 11).

  23. Bachelard (1932/1992, pp. 16, 26, 29, 32).

  24. Bergson (1934, note 5, p. 217ff).

  25. Bergson (1896/1908, p. 147).

  26. Bachelard (1936, p. 60).

  27. Bachelard (1932/1992, p. 23).

  28. Bachelard (1936, p. 17).

  29. Bachelard (1939a, p. 175). Translator’s note: The French version of this essay is also included in the 1992 edition of L’Intuition de l’instant (pp. 101–111).

  30. Bachelard (1936, p. 18).

  31. Bergson (1907, p. 273).

  32. Bachelard (1936, pp. 32–33).

  33. Bachelard (1936, p. 27).

  34. Bachelard (1932/1992, p. 93).

  35. Bachelard (1932/1992, p. 95).

  36. See Bergson’s account of exceptional human beings in Bergson (1932, pp. 25–26), and more generally in chapters I and II.

  37. At an international conference in Geneva, 1953, Bachelard characterized the role of scientists and creators as one of “optimal paternity”.

  38. Bachelard (1938b, p. 2).

  39. Bachelard (1936, p. 22). Translator’s Note: see Mary McAllester on Bachelard’s distinction between homo faber (human beings as makers of objects, or reproducers of forms) and his notion of homo aleator (human beings as explorers of possibilities, capable of transforming themselves and their world), in Gaston Bachelard: Subversive humanist (pp. 10, 40, 60, 140). See also her Introduction to The formation of the scientific mind, p. 9.

  40. Bachelard (1942, p. 108).

  41. Bachelard (1943, p. 1, modified); French edn, L’Air et les songes, p. 7.

  42. Bergson (1889, pp. 136–137).

  43. Bergson (1934, p. 20).

  44. Bachelard (1942, pp. 17, 18, 185); cf. Bachelard (1960, pp. 19–20, 127–128).

  45. Cf. Bachelard (1957, pp. 5–8), where (again against Bergson) Bachelard entrusts to “space” the possibility of recovering our memories and, even more, the immemorial which is nothing but a latent future that imagination could write, or at least intend to write.

  46. On this subject see Bernard (1970).

  47. Bachelard (1947, p. 5, modified). Cf. French edition, La Terre et les rêveries de la volonté, p. 7.

  48. Bergson (1889, p. 132, modified). Translator’s note: by rendering “le mot brutal” as “the rough and ready word,” Pogson’s translation does not convey the violence that Perraudin highlights in this Bergsonian passage; cf. French edition, Essais sur les donnés immediates de la conscience, p. 98; also Laughter, pp. 117, 130.

  49. Bachelard (1957, p. xxiii).

  50. Ibid., French phrase added in brackets.

  51. Bergson (1907, p. 177).

  52. Bergson (1907, p. 209).

  53. Translator’s Note: Bachelard had begun to illustrate the notion of “culture complexes” already in his Psychoanalysis of fire (e.g. the Prometheus complex, the Hoffman complex, etc.), but it is in Water and dreams (Bachelard 1942, p. 17) that he first articulates a working definition for these pre-reflective attitudes and habits of the cultural psyche.

  54. Bachelard (1957, pp. xxviii–xxix).

  55. Cf. Bachelard (1957, pp. xi, xii, xxvff).

  56. Bachelard (1957, pp. xix).

  57. Bachelard (1939a, p. 175, modified). Translator’s note: J. A. Underwood’s rendering of il jaillit as “it gushes” does not convey Bachelard’s emphasis on time’s “verticality”. Cf. French version, in L’Intuition de l’instant (1992), p. 106.

  58. Lydie (1951, pp. 15–160).

  59. Bergson (1907, p. 48).

  60. Bachelard (1957, pp. 75).

  61. Bachelard (1957, pp. 74–75ff).

  62. Quillet, op. cit. (1964, pp. 148, 149).

  63. Bachelard (1960, p. 3).

  64. Translator’s note: See Bachelard’s critique of those types of “interpretation” that reduce poetic images to definite concepts or psychoanalytic contents—for instance, in Bachelard (1957, p. xx) or Bachelard (1988, p. 25).

  65. Bachelard (1943, pp. 124–125).

  66. Bachelard (1960, p. 4, 5).

  67. Poulet (1965, p. 15).

  68. Bachelard (1960, p. 5).

  69. Bachelard (1960, p. 6).

  70. Bachelard (1943, p. 256), modified. Farrell’s translation renders Bachelard’s “multiplier” as becoming “more versatile”. I have chosen to restore the verb “multiply” since it is pivotal to Perraudin’s reading of Bachelard; cf. French edition, L’Air et les songes, p. 291.

  71. See Bachelard (1940, pp. 115–117); cf. French edition, pp. 135–137.

References

The following list provides publication dates of the original French texts within initial parentheses (accompanied by the date of the latest edition, where applicable). Publication dates of the English translation (if available) appear after the details of the translation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lycée Carnot, 16 Boulevard Thiers, 21000, Dijon, France

    Jean François Perraudin

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This translated text is a revised version of Jean Francois Perraudin’s “Un Bachelard Non-Bergsonien,” published in Gaston Bachelard: Du rêveur ironiste au pédagogue inspiré (Gaston Bachelard: From Ironic Dreamer to Inspired Educator). Ed. Jean Libis. Dijon: Centre Regional de Documentation Pédagogique, 1984, pp. 61–76. Passages cited from Bergson’s and Bachelard’s works are here drawn from published English translations (with an occasional amendment noted, and key French phrases inserted parenthetically). In the case of citations from French texts not yet available in English, all translations are mine.

Translated by Eileen Rizo-Patron

Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture Program, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY 13902, USA

e-mail: erizopatron@stny.rr.com

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Perraudin, J.F. A non-Bergsonian Bachelard. Cont Philos Rev 41, 463–479 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-008-9093-6

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