Gaston Bachelard: a Philosophy of the Surreal

Analyses Bachelard's work on epistemology, poetic imagination and temporality Gaston Bachelard was a seminal figure in contemporary French philosophy. Together with Jean Cavaillès, Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault he shaped the style of thinking characteristic of contemporary philosophy of science known as the 'French epistemological' school. While in France Bachelard is a towering presence, and his influence is visible in the writings of many different thinkers well beyond philosophy of science, he remains little known in the Anglophone world. Zbigniew Kotowicz offers, for the first time in English, an in-depth presentation of the entire spectrum of Bachelard's work - epistemology, poetic imagination and temporality - and he also explores an old philosophical tradition that Bachelard's thought opens up - atomism - a doctrine that has been almost forgotten and is much misunderstood. Zbigniew Kotowicz is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Philosophy of Science at the University of Lisbon.