Poet, physicist, philosopher. Le voila: Gaston Bachelard. How these disciplines are not mutually dependent and intertwined is a mystery to me....
"And, irrespective of what one might assume, in the life of a science, problems do not arise by themselves. It is precisely this that marks out a problem as being of the true scientific spirit: all knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself. Nothing is given. All is constructed."
Michel Foucault said Bachelard "plays against his own culture with his own culture."
Checkmate
During the breaking of the wall with that hammer of a proposition, who is the audience and who is on stage? Is Gaston, representing the scientist and seeker, speaking out to his fellow dignitaries to shed light upon their constructs? Does he realize that it is perhaps the question which proceeds from itself? I do believe something, just ONE thing had to have proceeded from itself for everything else that is to have been able to unfold. You know, the universe et al...
Is that ONE thing the audience? Listening amusedly as that which he (or she, or it) created denies him of his own non-constructed existence?
Perhaps it is in the 'knowing' of his fact (?!) that the consciousness of our construction can lead us to an opening; to a given firmament, to a finally tangible non-reality.
"For consciousness rejuvenates everything, giving the quality of beginning to the most everyday actions.
Elevators do away with the heroism of stair climbing so that there is no longer any virtue in living up near the sky.
All values must remain vulnerable, and those that do not are dead.
It is striking that the most favourable field for receiving the consciousness of freedom is none other than reverie.
The reveries of two solitary souls prepare the sweetness of loving. A realist of passion will see nothing there but evanescent formulas. But just the same it is no less true that great passions are prepared by great reveries. The reality of love is mutilated when it is detached from all its unrealness.
It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.
If a poet looks through a microscope or a telescope, he always sees the same thing."
"And, irrespective of what one might assume, in the life of a science, problems do not arise by themselves. It is precisely this that marks out a problem as being of the true scientific spirit: all knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself. Nothing is given. All is constructed."
Michel Foucault said Bachelard "plays against his own culture with his own culture."
Checkmate
During the breaking of the wall with that hammer of a proposition, who is the audience and who is on stage? Is Gaston, representing the scientist and seeker, speaking out to his fellow dignitaries to shed light upon their constructs? Does he realize that it is perhaps the question which proceeds from itself? I do believe something, just ONE thing had to have proceeded from itself for everything else that is to have been able to unfold. You know, the universe et al...
Is that ONE thing the audience? Listening amusedly as that which he (or she, or it) created denies him of his own non-constructed existence?
Perhaps it is in the 'knowing' of his fact (?!) that the consciousness of our construction can lead us to an opening; to a given firmament, to a finally tangible non-reality.
"For consciousness rejuvenates everything, giving the quality of beginning to the most everyday actions.
Elevators do away with the heroism of stair climbing so that there is no longer any virtue in living up near the sky.
All values must remain vulnerable, and those that do not are dead.
It is striking that the most favourable field for receiving the consciousness of freedom is none other than reverie.
The reveries of two solitary souls prepare the sweetness of loving. A realist of passion will see nothing there but evanescent formulas. But just the same it is no less true that great passions are prepared by great reveries. The reality of love is mutilated when it is detached from all its unrealness.
It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.
If a poet looks through a microscope or a telescope, he always sees the same thing."
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