Bachelard Gaston - Gaston Bachelard: philosopher of science and imagination

SUNY SERIES IN C ONTEMPORARY F RENCH T HOUGHT

David Pettigrew and Franois Raffoul, editors

Philosopher of Science and Imagination

R OCH C. S MITH

First edition, Gaston Bachelard published by Twayne Publishers, Copyright 1982 by G. K. Hall & Company, Boston, 1982. ISBN 0-8057-6511

Copyright 1982 by G. K. Hall & Company

Frontispiece: Portrait of Bachelard. Courtesy of the Association Internationale Gaston Bachelard/International Gaston Bachelard Association and the Mdiathque de Bar-sur-Aube/Bar-sur-Aube Multimedia Library.

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2016 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

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Production, Jenn Bennett

Marketing, Anne M. Valentine

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Smith, Roch Charles, 1941- author.

Title: Gaston Bachelard : philosopher of science and imagination / Roch C. Smith.

Description: Revised and updated. | Albany : State University of New York Press, [2016] | Series: SUNY series in contemporary French thought | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015042622 (print) | LCCN 2016001682 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438461915 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438461939 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Bachelard, Gaston, 1884-1962.

Classification: LCC B2430.B254 S64 2016 (print) | LCC B2430.B254 (ebook) | DDC 194dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042622

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To my grandchildren: Felix, Noah, Frances, and Sae

I wish to restate the appreciation I expressed many years ago for the indispensable support I received in establishing what is now the foundation of this book, its first edition:

I would not have completed such an undertaking without the assistance of several colleagues, many of them experts in areas other than my own, who read portions of the manuscript and who endured with infinite patience my many attempts to clarify particular points. Professor Edouard Morot-Sir and Professor Robert B. Rosthal gave me valuable advice on dealing with Bachelards epistemology. I am grateful to Professor Richard T. Whitlock for his insight and for his extremely lucid exposition of scientific issues. I wish also to thank Professor James C. Atkinson, who read the chapters on the imagination, and to express my particular gratitude to Professor William O. Goode, who graciously consented to read the entire manuscript, despite many obligations of his own. Any virtues this book may have are largely attributable to their efforts. Its faults are entirely my own. I extend my thanks also to Professor Maxwell A. Smith, who gave me excellent editorial advice while calmly bearing with my delays, to Professor E. Mary McAllester for her helpful comments on the final typescript, and to Professor Douglas W. Alden and Professor Gerald Prince for their assistance in the early, bibliographical stages of this project.

To these thanks I am pleased to add my gratitude to several individuals for their encouragement in preparing this revised and updated edition. First and foremost, I wish to acknowledge the key role Eileen Rizo-Patron played in this endeavor. Her first inquiry several years ago about reprinting my book, her many initiatives on Bachelard in which she kept me involved, as well as her discerning updates on Bachelard scholarship over the years were exceptionally helpful. My special thanks to Rizo-Patron, as well as to Edward S. Casey and Jason Wirth for proposing that my book be re-issued conjunction with their book in progress, Adventures in Phenomenology: Gaston Bachelard . Their thoughtful and enthusiastic support was crucial to the initiation and completion of this revised work.

The new matter in this edition, including the list of Abbreviations, the Introduction, dual references to Bachelards original French texts along with their translations, numerous emendations, additional discussion of Bachelards posthumous work, updated annotated bibliography, and revised index were made considerably easier by the attentive, clear, and open-minded guidance of Andrew Kenyon, acquisitions editor, and Jenn Bennett, production editor, at SUNY Press. My thanks as well to Professor of Philosophy Terrance C. McConnell, and to my son Roch Smith, Jr., for their careful and thoughtful reading and commentary on drafts of the Introduction. I am also much obliged to Amy Williamsen, Head of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for acquiescing to my requests for copying in these times of budgetary stress.

I am especially pleased to express my heartfelt gratitude to several family members for their irreplaceable inspiration over the many years this work has been in the making. What I said in the first edition continues to apply: This effort would never have been sustained, or even begun, without the constant, often unspoken understanding and encouragement of my wife, Elaine, to whom I am deeply grateful. Her support and her active assistance in improving the manuscript and in proofreading the final draft were invaluable. It is my good fortune to be able to thank her anew for the unique and essential support she constantly and generously provides in this and in many other areas. I dedicated the first edition to my sons, Roch C. Smith, Jr., Paul H. Smith, and Mark J. Smith, and I now restate my appreciation for their continued interest and encouragement. A revised edition is necessarily directed toward the world of the future, where one anticipates books will survive and a multifaceted life of the mind will prosper. With that fond hope, I dedicate this book to my grandchildren, who already inhabit that world. May they make the most of it.

References to Bachelard are given parenthetically, using the abbreviations below. Page references to published English translations are followed by references to the French original.

AD Air and Dreams , trans. Edith R. Farrell and C. Frederick Farrell LAir et les songes (1943)

ARPC LActivit Rationaliste de la physique contemporaine (1951) [The Rationalist Activity of Contemporary Physics]

DD The Dialectic of Duration , trans. Mary McAllester Jones La Dialectique de la dure (1936)

ECA Essai sur la connaissance approche (1928) [An Essay on Knowledge by Approximation]

EEPC LExprience de lespace dans la physique contemporaine (1938) [The Experience of Space in Contemporary Physics]

EEPP tude sur lvolution dun problme de physique: La Propagation thermique dans les solides (1928) [A Study on the Evolution of a Physics Problem: Heat Transfer in Solids]

ERR Earth and Reveries of Repose , trans. Mary McAllester Jones La Terre et les rveries du repos (1948)