Bashlyar Gaston

Gaston Bachelard was a French philosopher and art theorist.

Gaston Bachelard was born into a poor artisan family. Forced to earn his own living, he worked from 1902 as an employee in the postal administration, first in the town of Remiremont and from 1907 in Paris. In 1912, despite being busy with work, he was able to become a licentiate in mathematical sciences, completing a course at the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris. Bachelard married in July 1914. During the First World War he was called up into the army. After demobilization he became a chemistry teacher at the college in his native town. Soon a daughter, Suzanne (1919–2007), was born into the Bachelard family; she later followed in her father’s footsteps and became a professional philosopher and historian of philosophy. In 1920 Bachelard became a licentiate in philosophy, and in 1922 an agrégé in philosophy. In 1927 he received his doctorate at the Sorbonne. From 1930 to 1940 he held the position of professor of philosophy at the University of Dijon. From 1941 to 1954 he was a professor at the Sorbonne.

The subject of Gaston Bachelard’s interest throughout his life was the philosophical foundations of the natural sciences. He began publishing his first works on this subject at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s. His philosophical debut was the study Essai sur la connaissance approchée (1928). It was followed by works such as Le nouvel esprit scientifique (1934) and La formation de l'esprit scientifique: contribution à une psychanalyse de la connaissance objective (1938). In Bachelard’s prewar books, the influence of Henri Bergson’s school and of psychoanalysis, as well as scientific constructivism, is already evident.

In his later works, such as Le Rationalisme appliqué (1949) and Le matérialisme rationnel (1953), Bachelard continued his systematic analysis of the philosophical problems of the natural sciences, focusing on the problem of scientific creativity and the analysis of the fundamental concepts