Die Bildung des wissenschaftlichen Geistes

Contribution to a Psychoanalysis of Objective Knowledge

Summary:
The history of science is not like any other history. The palace of discoveries is not a museum for idle onlookers. One does not go there on rainy days to kill time. There is a dialectic between ordinary curiosity and scientific curiosity: the former seeks to observe, while the latter seeks to understand. Gaston Bachelard is the true founder of contemporary epistemology. He has not only discovered a new field of research but has also partially explored and illuminated it. Strictly speaking, his epistemology is a phenomenology of the natural sciences. Ultimately, the entire epistemology of Gaston Bachelard shows us how the scientist gradually conquers the foundations of his field.

Authors: Bachelard, Gaston; Bischoff, Michael (trans.); Lepenies, Wolf (foreword).