Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Place, Space and Hermeneutics pp 183–195Cite as

Gaston Bachelard’s Places of the Imagination and Images of Space

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Contributions to Hermeneutics ((CONT HERMEN,volume 5))

Abstract

This chapter explores Gaston Bachelard’s hermeneutics of place, or ‘topoanalysis’, in the context of his philosophy of the imagination. In turn, his philosophy of the imagination is considered as part of his whole philosophical project, which includes his philosophy of science, and is based on his view of the ‘double anthropology’ of the ‘diurnal man’ and the ‘nocturnal man’. By broadening the narrow focus on The Poetics of Space, which has been predominant in Anglophone criticism, we can better understand Bachelard’s approach to the analysis of space. I examine Bachelard’s approach to the study of space, and consider his use of Jungian analytical psychology, phenomenology and hermeneutics. I conclude that he consciously, and indeed explicitly, steered away from any fully-fledged and rational method in his study of place. I also argue that the aims of his philosophy, including his hermeneutics of place, are pedagogical.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Notes

  1. 1.

    The concept of epistemological obstacle, alongside with that of epistemological break, is central in Bachelard’s epistemology.

  2. 2.

    For Bachelard, science only emerged at the end of the eighteenth century.

  3. 3.

    Here I follow Bachelard’s view of his own investigation and indeed of our approach to objects: from the first, immediate encounter with an object, we can follow an axis towards objectification and science, or in the opposite direction, towards subjectivity and poetry; see (Bachelard 1964 [1938], pp. 2–3).

  4. 4.

    ‘The dark summers in the house’ suggest a house in which shatters prevent sunlight and heat from entering, a rather geographically and culturally specific image.

  5. 5.

    Bachelard discussed verticality more generally in (Bachelard 1992a [1947], Chapter 12), and in (Bachelard 1972a [1943]).

  6. 6.

    Bachelard’s use of psychoanalysis was rather eclectic from the beginning: he variously employed Freud and Jung and above all Marie Bonaparte and René Allendy.

  7. 7.

    See for instance (Kennedy 2011).

  8. 8.

    For my interpretation of Bachelard’s philosophy of science as a pedagogical project, see (Chimisso 2001). For a defence of the enduring pedagogical value of Bachelard’s philosophy, see (Favre 1995).

References

  • Bachelard, Gaston. 1951. L’activité rationaliste de la physique contemporaine. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1961. La flamme d’une chandelle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1964 [1938]. The Psychoanalysis of Fire. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1968 [1940]. The Philosophy of No: A Philosophy of the New Scientific Mind. New York: Orion Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1970 [1934–1935]. Idéalisme discursif. In Etudes, 87–97. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1971 [1960]. The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language and the Cosmos. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1972a [1943]. L’air et les songes. Essai sur l’imagination du mouvement. Paris: Corti.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1972b [1953]. Le matérialisme rationnel. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1983 [1942]. Water and Dreams. An Essay on the Imagination of Matter. Dallas: The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1984 [1934]. The New Scientific Spirit. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1986a [1939]. Lautréamont. Paris: Corti.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1986b [1949]. Le rationalisme appliqué. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1988. Fragments d’une poétique du feu. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1992a [1947]. La terre et les rêveries de la volonté. Essai sur l’imagination de la matière. Paris: Corti.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1992b [1948]. La terre et les rêveries du repos. Essai sur les images de l’intimité. Paris: Corti.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1994 [1957]. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2000 [1936]. The Dialectic of Duration, with an Introduction by Cristina Chimisso. Manchester: Clinamen.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002 [1938]. The Formation of the Scientific Mind. Manchester: Clinamen Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buytendijk, Frederik Jacobus Johan. 1968. Woman. A contemporary View. Glen Rock/New York: Newman Press/Association Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casey, E.S. 1997. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chimisso, Cristina. 2001. Gaston Bachelard: Critic of Science and the Imagination. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Favre, Michel. 1995. Bachelard educateur. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freud, Sigmund. 1985. Art and Literature: Jensen’s Gradiva, Leonardo da Vinci and Other Works. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1962 [1927]. Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huskinson, Lucy. 2012. Housing Complexes: Redesigning the House of Psyche in Light of a Curious Mistranslation of C. G. Jung Appropriated by Gaston Bachelard. International Journal of Jungian Studies 5(1): 64–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Husserl, Edmund. 1960 [1931]. Cartesian Meditations. An Introduction to Phenomenology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1970 [1936]. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Translated, with an introd., by David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jung, C.G. 1928. Contributions to Analytical Psychology. London: Kegan Paul & Co..

    Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, Miles. 2011. Home: A Bachelardian Concrete Metaphysics. Oxford: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laurans, Jacques. 1983. “Rêverie sur un onde.” Solaire numéro spécial 10e anniversaire, Bachelard ou le droit de rêver: 155–157.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lescure, J. 1983. Un été avec Bachelard. Paris: Luneau-Ascot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mettra, Claude. 1983. “L’art de la solitude.” Solaire numéro spécial 10e anniversaire, Bachelard ou le droit de rêver:105–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Minkowski, Eugène. 1999. Vers une cosmologie. Paris: Payot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. Philosophical Hermeneutics and Theological Hermeneutics: Ideology, Utopia, and Faith: Colloquy 17, 1975. Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic & Modern Culture.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. Husserl: An Analysis of His Phenomenology. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wrathall, Mark, A and Hubert L. Dreyfus. 2006. A Brief Introduction to Phenomenology and Existentialism In A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism, edited by Mark Wrathall, A and Hubert L. Dreyfus: Blackwell Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Cristina Chimisso

Authors
  1. Cristina Chimisso
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cristina Chimisso .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

    Bruce B. Janz

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Chimisso, C. (2017). Gaston Bachelard’s Places of the Imagination and Images of Space. In: Janz, B. (eds) Place, Space and Hermeneutics. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52214-2_14

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation