Author(s): Gaston Bachelard

Culture & Ideas

Bachelard is neither a self-confessed and tortured atheist like Satre, nor, like Chardin, a heretic combining a belief in God with a proficiency in modern science. But, within the French context, he is almost as important as they are because he has a pseudo-religious force, without taking a stand on religion. To define him as briefly as possible - he is a philosopher, with a professional training in the sciences, who devoted most of the second phase of his career to promoting that aspect of human nature which often seems most inimical to science: the poetic imagination ... - J.G. Weightman, The New York Times Review of Books
Preface by Northrop Frye. Translated by Alan C. M. Ross. Beacon Paperback No. 277.
First published as Beacon Paperback in 1968.