Gaston Fessard employs Hegel’s dialectical logic to clarify how St. Ignatius’s _Spiritual Exercises_ envisage and prepare the decisions and choices between contrasting options or major turning points in spiritual life, in moments of what Ignatius would call _Election_.

This special issue aims to redress the balance and to open up Gaston Bachelard's work beyond a small in-crowd of experts and aficionado’s in France. It aims to stimulate the discovery of new and understudied aspects of Bachelard’s work, including aspects of the intellectual milieu he was working in. Fortunately, for this purpose we were able to rely both on renowned Bachelard specialists, such as Hans-Jörg Rheinberg-er, Cristina Chimisso and Dominique Lecourt, as well as on a number of younger (...) scholars who are discovering their work in a different intellectual context. At the same time we also want to reassess the value of this oeuvre, which also entails examining the reasons and causes of the relative neglect of Bachelard’s work in recent times. Has it exhausted its possibilities? Does it have intrinsic limitations that have contributed to the eclipse, as some influential, mainly French, philoso-phers have more or less explicitly suggested? (shrink)

In this new study, Cristina Chimisso explores the work of the French Philosopher of Science, Gaston Bachelard by situating it within French cultural life of the first half of the century. The book is introduced by a study - based on an analysis of portraits and literary representations - of how Bachelard's admirers transformed him into the mythical image of the Philosopher, the Patriarch and the 'Teacher of Happiness'. Such a projected image is contrasted with Bachelard's own conception of (...) philosophy and his personal pedagogical and moral ideas. This pedagogical orientation is a major feature of Bachelard's texts, and one which deepens our understanding of the main philosophical arguments. The primary thesis of the book is based on the examination of the French educational system of the time and of French philosophy taught in schools and conceived by contemporary philosophers. This approach also helps to explain Bachelard's reception of psychoanalysis and his mastery of modern literature. _Gaston Bachelard: Critic of Science and the Imagination_ thus allows for a new reading of Bachelard's body of work, whilst at the same time providing an insight into twentieth century French culture. (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard occupies a unique position in the history of European thinking. As a philosopher of science, he developed a profound interest in genres of the imagination, notably poetry and novels. While emphatically acknowledging the strength, precision and reliability of scientific knowledge compared to every-day experience, he saw literary phantasies as important supplementary sources of insight. Although he significantly influenced authors such as Lacan, Althusser, Foucault and others, while some of his key concepts are still widely used, his oeuvre (...) tends to be overlooked. And yet, as I will argue, Bachelard’s extended series of books opens up an intriguing perspective on contemporary science. First, I will point to a remarkable duality that runs through Bachelard’s oeuvre. His philosophy of science consists of two sub-oeuvres: a psychoanalysis of technoscience, complemented by a poetics of elementary imagination. I will point out how these two branches deal with complementary themes: technoscientific artefacts and literary fictions, two realms of human experience separated by an epistemological rupture. Whereas Bachelard’s work initially entails a panegyric in praise of scientific practice, he becomes increasingly intrigued by the imaginary and its basic images, such as the Mother Earth archetype. (shrink)

The article deals with the phenomenon of French historical epistemology and Gaston Bachelard's role in its theoretical and institutional establishment. It analyses the place of history of sciences in French historical epistemology, which was considered in France as epistemology perse from the beginning of XX century. The article accompanies first Russian translation of Bachelard's lecture "Topicality of the History of Science" and argues that this text represents Bachelardian program for reformation of scientific history as an academic discipline. The importance (...) of this text for French epistemological tradition bases on, firstly, the analysis of methodology of the historical investigation, which subject is a scientific discipline, and secondly, historian's and epistemologist's theoretical approaches. (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard's thought remains a continual source of inspiration for a phenomenological psychology that takes human habitation as a fundamental given and as an abiding mystery of the human condition. the following essay explores the ideas Bachelard developed in the course of his study of poetry. It examines in particular his vision of imagination as a unique passage way by means of which we reach an inhabitable, intersubjective and fully human world. Within that perspective, our lives are constantly renewed (...) by the appearance of a revealing image or a telling metaphor. Each time that we are awakened by this appeal we commemorate the birth and rebirth of a human world. (shrink)

Gaston Bouthol founded a particular sociology known as polemology. Skeptical about the pacifism and critic of the juridical illusion of the international regulation of the peace-phenomenon, he studied the war-phenomenon without moralising prejudices. Polemology, that involves a critic of culture, is focused on the social function of war, known as the most important institution of destruction. The study of major wars enabled him to raise an hypothesis that foresees the periodicity of wars.

A l'occasion du cinquantenaire de la mort de Gaston Berger (1896-1960), la Chaire Humanisme, Citoyenneté, Civilisations de l'université catholique de Lyon a pris l'initiative d'organiser deux journées d'études pour commémorer l'oeuvre de ce philosophe audacieux et atypique, fondateur d'institutions et de revues, chef d'entreprise et homme d'action. Ces journées ont permis d'étudier les modalités sous lesquelles Gaston Berger a envisagé les liens entre philosophie et sciences humaines, qu'il n'a eu de cesse de faire dialoguer. Sa trajectoire intellectuelle originale (...) a été interrogée, depuis la tradition blondélienne de la philosophie de l'action et la phénoménologie, jusqu'au "tournant pragmatique" qu'il opère avec l'idée de la prospective. Associant des chercheurs issus de différentes institutions, mais héritières à divers titres de l'oeuvre de Gaston Berger, elles ont montré comment le cheminement intellectuel de Berger a influencé ses orientations et ses décisions d'homme d'action, et comment en retour son expérience d'homme de terrain a nourri et alimenté sa réflexion philosophique, psychologique et sociologique. (shrink)

L'oeuvre de Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) explore les deux versants de la culture moderne : la connaissance scientifique dans ses formes les plus innovantes et l'expérience poétique, de la rêverie spontanée aux grandes créations de la littérature dans ses expressions les plus immémoriales. Au-delà de ces rapports entre science et poésie, entre théorème et poème, ne pourrait-on pas trouver aussi, en filigrane, les lignes profondes d'une philosophie pratique, d'un humanisme et d'une sagesse? Les ouvrages de Bachelard livrent une mine de (...) positions et propositions, sous forme d'innombrables éclairs et éclairages sur l'être humain, toujours en devenir entre l'être et le devoir-être, entre l'être et le néant. Mais en dégageant une éthique de la connaissance et une autre de la création poétique, Bachelard dévoile une double dimension éthique, l'une plutôt marquée par la tradition chrétienne et kantienne, l'autre plutôt par un eudémonisme aristotélicien. Faut-il voir dans ce double discours éthique une contradiction, une incohérence, une négligence? Ou ne pourrait-on pas, de manière inattendue, conclure que pour Bachelard l'homme est double jusque dans sa vie morale? Contre l'éthique unidimensionnelle classique, Bachelard plaiderait donc pour une éthique plurielle. Jamais un philosophe n'avait osé s'aventurer dans pareille direction, et nous n'avons pas fini de méditer cette double racine morale de l'homme, et les conséquences théoriques et pratiques de cette proposition singulière. (shrink)

Pour Gaston Bachelard, le « non » signifie dépasser et compléter le savoir antérieur, la philosophie de la connaissance scientifique doit englober les contradictions. Il établit le profil épistémologique de l’évolution, du réalisme naïf au surrationalisme en passant par le rationalisme classique et élargit le domaine de l’intuition à ce qu’il appelle une « intuition travaillée»s’exerçant dans un espace non analytique.

Gaston Bachelard is one of the indespensable figures in the history of 20th-century ideas. The broad scope of his work has had a lasting impact in several fields - notable philosophy, architecture and literature.

Automated technologies populating today’s online world rely on social expectations about how “smart” they appear to be. Algorithmic processing, as well as bias and missteps in the course of their development, all come to shape a cultural realm that in turn determines what they come to be about. It is our contention that a robust analytical frame could be derived from culturally driven Science and Technology Studies while focusing on Callon’s concept of translation. Excitement and apprehensions must find a specific (...) language to move past a state of latency. Translations are thus contextual and highly performative, transforming justifications into legitimate claims, translators into discursive entrepreneurs, and power relations into new forms of governance and governmentality. In this piece, we discuss three cases in which artificial intelligence was deciphered to the public: the Montreal Declaration for a Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence, held as a prime example of how stakeholders manage to establish the terms of the debate on ethical artificial intelligence while avoiding substantive commitment; Mark Zuckerberg’s 2018 congressional hearing, where he construed machine learning as the solution to the many problems the platform might encounter; and the normative renegotiations surrounding the gradual introduction of “killer robots” in military engagements. Of interest are not only the rational arguments put forward, but also the rhetorical maneuvers deployed. Through the examination of the ramifications of these translations, we intend to show how they are constructed in face of and in relation to forms of criticisms, thus revealing the highly cybernetic deployment of artificial intelligence technologies. (shrink)

Comment Bachelard, fils d'un cordonnier, professeur de physique et chimie, a-t-il pu devenir cet humaniste aussi savant que philosophe, aussi penseur que poète? Il n'a pas emprunté les chemins balisés, ceux des élites universitaires et culturelles. Il a contrarié les pronostics et les conventions. Il s'est adjugé contre vents et marées le droit de penser par lui-même en bousculant les frontières des savoirs et de la culture et en dérangeant les us et coutumes établis. "Un ouvrage aussi lumineux que la (...) destinée et l'oeuvre de Gaston Bachelard. Au plus près de sa vie et de sa pensée". (Philippe Meirieu). (shrink)

RésuméL'auteur analyse la conception de la méthode dialectique chez Gaston Bachelard et Ferdinand Gonseth qui est à L'origine de la «philosophie ouverte». Lorsqu'il s'est agi de donner un nom à la revue qu'ils allaient fonder avec Paul Bernays, le choix s'est porté sur celui de Dialectica, en accord avec L'orientation qu'ils comptaient donner à leurs publications.SummaryThe author describes Gaston Bachelard's and Ferdinand Gonseth's dialectical method which is at the origin of their so‐called open philosophy. When faced with the (...) task of giving a name to a planned review, edited together with Paul Bernays, they settled their choice on Dialectica in order to announce the orientation of the future publications.ZusammenfassungEs werden Gaston Bachelards und Ferdinand Gonseths Auffassungen der dialektischen Methode dargelegt, die zur Entwicklung der «offenen Philosophie» geführt hat. Die Tatsache, dass sich die beiden Philosophen, die gemeinsam mit Paul Bernays Dialectica gegründet haben, über die Vorzüge dieser Methode einig waren, hat für die Wahl des Namens der Zeitschrift den Ausschlag gegeben. (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) was a seminal figure in contemporary French philosophy. Together with Michel Foucault, Georges Canguilhem and Jean Cavailles, he shaped the 'French epistemological' school of philosophy of science. In France, Bachelard is a towering presence; in the English-speaking world, he is little known. Now, Zbigniew Kotowicz gives us the first English language, in-depth presentation of the entire spectrum of Bachelard's work: epistemology, poetic imagination and temporality. And he explores an old philosophical tradition that Bachelard's thought opens up (...) - atomism - a doctrine that has been almost forgotten and is much misunderstood ". (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard began his academic career as a teacher of physics and chemistry, turning eventually to the history and philosophy of science: a personal evolution not uncommon in France, which since the turn of the century has also offered the examples of Duhem, Poincaré and Meyerson. Unlike these older contemporaries, however, Bachelard took as his special province not the logical structure of scientific theory, or the norms of theory construction, but the inventive spontaneity or “dynamism” of scientific thought. While (...) celebrating science as the ultimate expression of reason, he paid as much attention to its imaginative false starts as to the rational explanations it adopts. By 1938, moreover, he had turned explicitly to the activity of imagination: this became the general theme of a number of works that revolve freely about the four elements of an earlier and more poetic “science,” and the philosopher's field eventually was to become nothing less than his total experience, whether reasoned, lived or dreamed. (shrink)

House. From cellar to garret. Significance of the hut -- House and universe -- Drawers, chests and wardrobes -- Nests -- Shells -- Corners -- Miniature -- Intimate immensity -- Dialectics of outside and inside -- Phenomenology of roundness.

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. (shrink)

A psychology, Phenomenology and ontology of creativity developed by this french epistemologist and historian of science (1884-1962) are systematically described. Starting from analysis of image networks in literature, Bachelard presents imagination as autonomous, A power of human transcendence, A force preceding perception and memory. He ultimately surpasses psychological reductionism. Imagination of form is inferior to imagination of matter (depth); yet they both are secondary to dynamic imagination. Bachelard's fundamental method is a phenomenological study of images as origins of consciousness; a (...) phenomenology of reverie and writing underlies his ontology. Reverie is the model upon which imaginative consciousness is judged. Man should extend the freedom and beauty of his inner cosmos to enhance relation with the world. (shrink)

Bachelard’s works on imagination have been used primarily by literary critics interested in the archetypal imagery of writers. His treatment of the imagination of matter has led to a method of classifying poets according to their favorite substances, based on a view of Bachelard as a “psychoanalyst” of the elements. But the phenomena of imagination, the images themselves, are not his fundamental concern. Bachelard’s physics and chemistry of imagination also imply a metaphysics. Definition of the contents and function of imagination (...) illustrating a philosophy of imagination in itself is the purpose of the present essay. (shrink)

Ni religion ni philosophie, l'animisme est une compréhension neuve de la nature et sans doute aussi un art de vivre qui, face à un monde agité, nous apprend à mieux habiter le monde. Et si l'animisme s'avérait la seule possibilité de sauver l'homme? Par une nouvelle façon d'être au monde, cette pensée, souvent méconnue, se donne à vivre comme une contre-philosophie. Cette initiation est un éveil de l'être tout entier, une nouvelle cosmogonie qui se donne à lire. Il s'agit de (...) réapprivoiser son corps en réapprenant, par exemple, à respirer, à contempler, à se dessaisir du sens des choses, à apprendre à oublier le temps. Face à un monde agité et au seuil du chaos, l'animisme invite à retrouver l'aspect essentiel des choses. Instaurant un dialogue entre la philosophie occidentale et cette philosophie africaine, Gaston-Paul Effa décentre la perspective, et change de focale : et si une nouvelle révolution était en marche? Et si, contrairement à l'idée reçue, c'était la Nature qui humanisait l'Homme? (shrink)

En dessinant et réalisant les aventures de Gaston, Franquin n'a pas fait qu'oeuvre artistique et humoristique. Dans ce nouveau livre, Pierre Ansay s'emploie à montrer l'incroyable richesse philosophique de cette BD à mettre dans les mains de ceux qui veulent penser leur vie. Comment résister aux impositions mortifères qui parsèment notre vie quotidienne? Comment concilier créativité et poésie personnelle avec les exigences normatives de la vie moderne? Comment vivre à la fois en nomade et en sédentaire? La mise en (...) regard des apports de la philosophie, notamment Spinoza, Deleuze et Guattari avec l'oeuvre de Franquin jette un triple éclairage, sur l'oeuvre de Franquin, sur les philosophes convoqués pour cette rencontre et surtout sur ce qui défait mais fait aussi le tissu de notre vie quotidienne. (shrink)

: The paper aims at an analysis of the oeuvre of the French historian of science and epistemologist Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962). Bachelard was the founder of a tradition of French thinking about science that extended from Jean Cavaillès over Georges Canguilhem to Michel Foucault. In the past, he has become best known and criticized for his postulation of an epistemological rupture between everyday experience and scientific experience. In my analysis, I emphasize another aspect of the work of Bachelard. It (...) is the way he conceptualizes the relation between scientific thinking and technology in modern science. Within this framework, the notion of "phenomenotechnique" is of crucial importance. It is one of the organizing concepts of Bachelard's historical epistemology, and it serves as the organizing center of this paper. (shrink)

Un large public apprécie en Gaston Bachelard le philosophe de la rêverie poétique et l'épistémologue. Ses oeuvres consacrées à la question du temps sont moins connues. Cet ouvrage se propose de montrer en quoi les données actuelles des neurosciences apportent un éclairage nouveau à cette réflexion. Nombre d'hypothèses formulées en neurobiologie et en neuroesthétique renforce la thèse bachelardienne de la discontinuité du temps vécu et la conception qu'avait le philosophe de "l'instant poétique".

The article deals with the phenomenon of French historical epistemology and Gaston Bachelard's role in its theoretical and institutional establishment. It analyses the place of history of sciences in French historical epistemology, which was considered in France as epistemology perse from the beginning of XX century. The article accompanies first Russian translation of Bachelard's lecture "Topicality of the History of Science" and argues that this text represents Bachelardian program for reformation of scientific history as an academic discipline. The importance (...) of this text for French epistemological tradition bases on, firstly, the analysis of methodology of the historical investigation, which subject is a scientific discipline, and secondly, historian's and epistemologist's theoretical approaches. (shrink)

La question du rapport de la pensée bachelardienne à la mathématique contemporaine a longtemps été éludée au profit exclusif d'une interprétation fautive. Un Bachelard formé à la physique et à la chimie qui n'auraitjamais donné sa véritable place à l'étude mathématique est l'interprétation qui prédomine depuis le colloque de Cerisy (1974). Le logicien Roger Martin affinne qu'il existe un silence coupable autour du problème des fondements (problématique ensembliste, axiomatique et logicisme). À partir d'une analyse serrée des textes, cette étude renoue (...) avec une image beaucoup plus juste d'un Bachelard pour qui la mathématique n'est rien de moins que « le sur-moi de la science ». (shrink)

Sans proposer une simple histoire de la chimie, cet ouvrage de Gaston Bachelard se propose de developper, a l'occasion des progres de la chimie moderne, une lecture philosophique de cette evolution, autour d'une idee articulant dialectiquement deux directions distinctes : la pensee du chimiste semble osciller entre le pluralisme d'une part et la reduction de la pluralite d'autre part. C'est dire que Bachelard se propose ici de caracteriser le soubassement philosophique de la pensee epistemologique promue par la recente evolution (...) de la chimie moderne. Si la decouverte scientifique est liee, dans le cas de la chimie, a la mise au jour de nouvelles substances, et ainsi au developpement d'un pluralisme des substances, la tache du philosophe consiste des lors a montrer que derriere tout pluralisme on peut reconnaitre un systele de coherence. C'est cette these majeure que deploie cet ouvrage dans une progression qui, du probleme philosophique du divers, mene, en passant par une analyse detaillee de l'apport considerable de Mendeleiev a la chimie moderne, a l'idee philosophique d'une harmonie substantielle. (shrink)

Much has been published on the career and scholarly achievements of Bernard Smith (1916–2011) since his retirement from teaching in 1977 and has predictably gathered pace after his death. It is clear that the reception of his very substantial body of writings, addressing so many fields within the humanities, critical thought and art history in particular, is only just beginning. The present study focuses on a large recent collection of Smith’s studies in which critical responses are integrated. I argue that (...) the profoundly personal nature of historiography, necessarily incorporating praise and blame in its rhetorical structure, requires that the critic position oneself openly in relation to the life and work of the subject undergoing scrutiny. Smith’s antipodean experience was in many ways distinctive. But those of us who knew him personally, or felt his influence as a teacher and writer, will need to reassess honestly their own genesis in order to deal effectively with the challenges embedded in his work. (shrink)

Examines the changes during the twentieth century in the views of mathematics, physics, and the scientific method and discusses the role of the mind in science.

L’article met à jour un désaccord très peu connu entre les PP. Gaston Fessard (1897-1978) et Henri de Lubac (1896-1991), à propos du discernement à poser sur le communisme et le progressisme chrétien entre 1945 et 1950. Après avoir dégagé les deux périodes qui marquent l’histoire de ce différend – publication de France, prends garde de perdre ta liberté (1945-1946) aux éditions du Témoignage chrétien (I) ; conférence du P. de Lubac sur « La conception de l’homme » aux (...) Semaines Sociales de juillet 1947 (II) – l’auteur analyse les raisons du désaccord, en pointant notamment le fait que le P. Fessard avait développé une véritable méthode de discernement des événements et des idéologies, là où le P. de Lubac ne disposait pas d’instrument équivalent (III). (shrink)