Gaston Bachelard

Gaston Bachelard
Born	(1884-06-27)27 June 1884 Bar-sur-Aube
Died	16 October 1962(1962-10-16) (aged 78) Paris
Alma mater	University of Paris (BA, 1920; D.-ès-Lettres, 1927)
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy French Rationalism French historical epistemology
Institutions	University of Dijon University of Paris
Main interests	Historical epistemology constructivist epistemology, history and philosophy of science, philosophy of art, psychoanalysis, literary theory, education
Notable ideas	Epistemological break, rational materialism, technoscience (techno-science)
Influences Émile Meyerson, Auguste Comte, Abel Rey, Léon Brunschvicg
Influenced Alexandre Koyré, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Dominique Lecourt, François Dagognet, Nader El-Bizri, Don Ihde, Cornelius Castoriadis,Michel Serres,Jules Vuillemin
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Gaston Bachelard (French: [baʃlaʁ]; 27 June 1884 – 16 October 1962) was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break (obstacle épistémologique and rupture épistémologique). He influenced many subsequent French philosophers, among them Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Dominique Lecourt and Jacques Derrida, as well as the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

Bachelard was a postmaster in Bar-sur-Aube, and then studied physics before finally becoming interested in philosophy. He was a professor at Dijon from 1930 to 1940 and then became the inaugural chair in history and philosophy of the sciences at the Sorbonne.

Bachelard's studies of the history and philosophy of science in such works as Le nouvel esprit scientifique ("The New Scientific Spirit", 1934) and La formation de l'esprit scientifique ("The Formation of the Scientific Mind", 1938) were based on his vision of historical epistemology as a kind of psychoanalysis of the scientific mind, or rather of the psychological factors in the development of sciences. For instance, he takes the example of Heisenberg's first chapters of the Physical principles of the quantum theory, where he alternatively defends a corpuscular theory and an undulatory theory, correcting each by the others (The New Scientific Mind, IV). This, claims Bachelard, is an excellent example of the importance of psychological training in sciences, as one should correct spontaneous errors by taking the opposite stance.