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Gaston Bachelard and his reactions to phenomenology

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Abstract

In this essay, I show how the French philosopher of science, Gaston Bachelard, reacted to the idea of phenomenology at different stages of his philosophical development. During the early years, Kantianism (through a Schopenhauerian reading of Kant) had the greatest influence on his understanding of phenomenology. Even if he always considered phenomenology a valuable method, Bachelard believed that the term noumenon is necessary, not for a full description of reality, but for probing possible sources of reality. For him, phenomena are not only static objects or things observed in nature, but dynamic objects that can be produced or even created (hence phenomenotechnique). The noumenal realm lies beyond the structure of the phenomenal world. In his later “poetical” years, Bachelard did not make a strict distinction between noumena and phenomena, but instead situated the poetical (literary) image, a phenomenon of literary consciousness, in specific zones between subjectivity and objectivity; the term phenomenotechnique no longer plays any role in his study of imagination or daydreams. For the later Bachelard, phenomenology became the method or attitude that can best lead us into the unexplored regions of our consciousness (reverie) which remain largely forgotten by Western philosophy, or drowned out by its exclusive concern with other aspects of consciousness, such as rational thought.

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Notes

  1. This article was produced at the Department of Philosophy of Trnava University as part of the grant project VEGA 1/0272/13. I would like to thank Dr. Clifford Foreman for consultations and language editing of the English text.

  2. Bachelard (1969 [1960], p. 1). In the posthumously published Fragment of a Poetics of Fire, he planned to start with a motto from Rimbaud’s poem Morning of Drunkenness: “We affirm you, method! We don’t forget that yesterday you glorified each one of our ages.” Bachelard (1988a, p. 27).

  3. Barsotti (2002).

  4. Bachelard (1988a, p. 53), where he says about “double-method” (diméthode) which units these two contrary methods.

  5. Bachelard (1951, p. 8).

  6. Bachelard (1964 [1938], pp. 58–59).

  7. Bachelard (1940, p. 109), my translation.

  8. Ibid., p. 60.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Chimisso (2008, p. 387).

  11. Bachelard (1940, p. 111), my translation.

  12. It seems that these attitudes of Bachelard toward the noumenal reality have their origins in Schopenhaurian reading of Kant. See, especially, § 24 of The World as Will and Representation, where Schopenhauer’s writes about qualitas occulta. A good example is his allusion to Euler’s understanding of the essence of gravitation in terms of attraction, but “this fine mind saw shimmering [of this principle of attraction] in the distance; he hurried to turn back in time, and in his anxiety, seeing all the contemporary fundamental views threatened, even sought refuge in old absurdities that had already been debunked.” Schopenhauer (2010, p. 152). These words are reminiscent of Bachelard’s polemics with the “commodisme” of Henri Poincaré. Bachelard (1940, p. 141).

  13. Ibid., p. 34, my translation.

  14. Bachelard (1984 [1934], p. 11).

  15. Sartre (2010, p. 28): “Intention lies in center of consciousness: it intends (vise) to object, thus it [intention] constitute it, as it is” (my translation).

  16. Bachelard (1963 [1953], pp. 11, 24), my translation.

  17. Ibid., p. 37, see also Bachelard (2004, pp. 112–116).

  18. Bachelard (1984 [1934], pp. 39, 64).

  19. See Bachelard’s confrontation with Merleau-Ponty and his distinction between “phénoménologie du vers” and “dynamologie du contre” in Bachelard (2004, pp. 57–58). Similar reflections we can find in the phenomenology of Michel Henry. See, for example, the passages in which Jaroslava Vydrová explore possibilities of Henry’s notion of “effort” and “resistance” for Husserlian phenomenology. Vydrová (2010, p. 137).

  20. Bachelard (1963 [1953], p. 11).

  21. Bachelard (2004, p. 112).

  22. Bachelard (1986 [1949], p. 43), my translation.

  23. Husserl (1982, p. 63).

  24. It is striking that Bachelard never mentioned Emmanuel Levinas in his works (and, conversely, Levinas never mentioned Bachelard) in spite of the fact that they agree on similar points. Róbert Karul has recently shown an example of this similarity in his discussion of the terms il y a in Levinas, and the (cogito) 3 or vertical time in Bachelard’s Dialectic of Duration. Karul (2012, pp. 137–144).

  25. Husserl (1931, p. 54), my emphasis.

  26. In Philosophy of No he writes that two persons could hear one another only in the case in which they contradict one another, because, as he closes: “Truth is a daughter of discussion, not a daughter of sympathy.” Bachelard (1940, p. 134), my translation.

  27. Canguilhem (2002, p. 195).

  28. Bachelard (2011 [1961], p. 92).

  29. Joni Caldwell used in the English translation of The Flame of a Candle term “implementarity”. Bachelard (1988b, p. 65). Joan Stambaugh translated in Being and Time the word as “usable material.” Heidegger (1996, p. 64). In an older translation of Being and Time, John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson used the term “equipmentality”. Heidegger (2005, p. 97).

  30. Namely, in Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes. Heidegger (1977, p. 18).

  31. Lescure (1963, p. 121).

  32. Bachelard (1992, [1948], p. 11).

  33. Bachelard (1986 [1949], pp. 109–110).

  34. Bachelard (2006 [1931], pp. 80, 83).

  35. Bachelard (1963 [1953], p. 182).

  36. Bachelard (1972, p. 97).

  37. Bachelard (1984 [1934], p. 12).

  38. Bachelard (2002a, p. 30).

  39. Bachelard (1994 [1957], p. xv).

  40. Thiboutot et al. (1999, pp. 1–17).

  41. Bachelard (1990, p. 9).

  42. Bachelard (1964 [1938], p. 5).

  43. Bachelard (1990, p. 8).

  44. Bachelard (1969, p. 174), my emphasis.

  45. Bachelard (1994, pp. 232–233).

  46. Lescure (1963, p. 121), my translation.

  47. Bachelard (1969, p. 109; 1994, p. 58).

  48. Osakabe (1981, p. 118).

  49. Bachelard (1940, p. 42 ff.).

  50. Merleau-Ponty (2004, p. 65).

  51. Kennedy (2011, p. 145).

  52. Bachelard (1990, pp. 10–11).

  53. For example Bachelard (2002b [1957], p. 110). We reflected the theme of the relation between Bachelard and Merleau-Ponty in two recent articles. Vydra (2011, 2012).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Center for Phenomenological Studies, Trnava University in Trnava, Hornopotočná 23, 918 43, Trnava, Slovakia

    Anton Vydra

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Vydra, A. Gaston Bachelard and his reactions to phenomenology. Cont Philos Rev 47, 45–58 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-014-9284-2

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