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Psicoanálisis del fuego
En Psicoanálisis del fuego el filósofo de la poética propone marcar los diferentes tipos de imaginación mediante el signo de los elementos materiales que han inspirado tanto a las filosofías tradicionales como a las cosmologías antiguas. En el reino de la imaginación, Bachelard establece una ley de los cuatro elementos que clasifica las diversas imaginaciones materiales según se vinculan al fuego, al aire, al agua o a la tierra. Es fundamental que toda poética reciba componentes de esencia material, estos son “las hormonas de la imaginación” al ejercer una acción directa sobre la creación artística.
194 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
About the author
Gaston Bachelard
95 books787 followersGaston Bachelard was a French philosopher who rose to some of the most prestigious positions in the French academy. His most important work is on poetics and on the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break (obstacle épistémologique et rupture épistémologique). He influenced many subsequent French philosophers, among them Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
October 24, 2018
Bachelard is very difficult to talk about or review. It's not that his writing is difficult, but rather that his subjects are so elusive, and he never shies away from avoiding specific conclusions; in fact, to specify conclusions would be contrary to his intent. Trying to specify a conclusion in his writing would be like trying to describe the shape of a flame (an easy simile but it's apt). His writing is like a flame (but somehow a soft flame that would never burn too terribly) in that there is a general shape but no specific shape, it's there and not there, an immaterial materiality. Yet behind all this gauzy unspecificity is an active needle-sharp mind, probing and probing, obsessed with origins and the root of all things.
The title of this particular book is somewhat deceiving. It's not that he politely asked a flame to lay on the couch and proceeded to question it about its tyranical mother. Rather the psychoanalytical subject is the human conceptualizations of fire, our subjective (masquerading as objective) responses to it. And through this study he lays bare the fallacy of scientific objectivity, the impossibiltiy of it, because we are simply too ruled by our passions and our loves. When we look at something such as a flame or a fire, no matter how determined we are to remain detached and objective, a revery is induced that causes our emotional body to project itself onto the flame, which in turn alters our conclusions.
Using historical example he shows that this process is very much like the experience of old time alchemists who dreamed wildly while monkishly ensconced among their flames and their alembics, and took these wild dreams as objective scientific conclusions. But I don't think Bachelard is disparaging these alchemists as he uses them as examplars. I think he uses them as an extreme example of what happens inside each of us as we gaze upon all the living objects around us.
The title of this particular book is somewhat deceiving. It's not that he politely asked a flame to lay on the couch and proceeded to question it about its tyranical mother. Rather the psychoanalytical subject is the human conceptualizations of fire, our subjective (masquerading as objective) responses to it. And through this study he lays bare the fallacy of scientific objectivity, the impossibiltiy of it, because we are simply too ruled by our passions and our loves. When we look at something such as a flame or a fire, no matter how determined we are to remain detached and objective, a revery is induced that causes our emotional body to project itself onto the flame, which in turn alters our conclusions.
Using historical example he shows that this process is very much like the experience of old time alchemists who dreamed wildly while monkishly ensconced among their flames and their alembics, and took these wild dreams as objective scientific conclusions. But I don't think Bachelard is disparaging these alchemists as he uses them as examplars. I think he uses them as an extreme example of what happens inside each of us as we gaze upon all the living objects around us.
January 17, 2020
Death in the flame is the least lonely of deaths. It is truly a cosmic death in which a whole universe is reduced to nothingness along with the thinker. The funeral pyre accompanies him in his passing.
Bachelard again gives us a poetic history of science as interpreted by Robert Burton. This book is ridiculous. I love it -- it remains so 18C. The overtures to Prometheius, the citations of Novalis and Balzac. The unintended irony of bracketing the entire work with references to Eluard and by extension (or my own inference) Jan Hus. If one can resist the Oedipal nature of the hearth and avoid the temptation of elixirs--which often leads to spontaneous immolation, there's a redemption in purification. Wind and ash.
Bachelard again gives us a poetic history of science as interpreted by Robert Burton. This book is ridiculous. I love it -- it remains so 18C. The overtures to Prometheius, the citations of Novalis and Balzac. The unintended irony of bracketing the entire work with references to Eluard and by extension (or my own inference) Jan Hus. If one can resist the Oedipal nature of the hearth and avoid the temptation of elixirs--which often leads to spontaneous immolation, there's a redemption in purification. Wind and ash.
August 25, 2020
Ovo je prvo u nizu Bašlarovih dela posvećenih „psihoanalizi objektivnog saznanja”. Naravno, u ovom slučaju, objektivno saznanje ne predstavlja racionalistički shvaćeno razumevanje sveta, već jednu panpoetsku analitiku, koja se pretače u lirsku esejizaciju. Psihoanaliza objektivnog saznanja jeste filozofsko-sanjalačko družbovanje sa elementima – vatrom, vodom, zemljom, vazduhom. Iz svakog od njih izviru poetske slike, koje treba da prepozna bašlarovski fenomenolog kao svojevrsni detektiv arhetipskog.
U traganju za vatrom u vatri, plamte uzbudljiva misaona putovanja. Tako Bašlar dolazi do aboridžanskih etioloških predanja o vatri, koja su uzbudljivo neusklađena – u prvom, vatra je nastala tako što su ptičice uspele da nasmeju izvesnu „podmuklu guju”, koja ju je pri smehu, ispustila iz čeljusti, pa su je bržebolje pokupile. (Inače, sad mi je palo na um, kako kažemo da je neko „prasnuo u smeh”. Svidelo bi se to Bašlaru.) U drugom, vatra je nastala iz rasečenog polnog uda stvorenja koje se zvalo „euro”. Nije jasno kako je ono izgledalo, a još manje kako ga je lovac uhvatio, ali upravo taj nedostatak informacija čini ga još intrigantnijim. Međutim, nešto više znamo o Prometeju, tom najvećem šverceru u istoriji sveta.
Kako je Bašlaru detalj svetinja, on ga misaono svetkuje. Razvija fenomenologiju ognjišta, refleksije o džaranju vatre, koje umiruje i donosi detinju ušuškanost, ili zadivljujuću poetiku taktilnosti. Dodir je zanemareno čulo. Razmišljajući o poreklu vatre, koje se vezuje za trenje, Bašlar trenje povezuje sa protoseksualnim impulsom, a svi pokreti koji uključuju interakciju individua, potiču od ovog trenja. Tako je milovanje sublimacija seksualnog trenja, koje je uprizoreno od pre-pamtiveka u prirodi. Ovi ukrštaji nisu samosvrhoviti – priča o pokretima samo je na korak udaljena priči o kulturi – kultivizaciji, a ona je tik uz razmišljanje o onome šta je osnova čoveka. Prateći Frojda (ali suštinski bivajući pre svega uz Junga), Bašlar tvrdi da je libido osnova homo fabera, i to ne samo u umetničkim, već u svim drugim njegovim aktivnostima. A libido je vatra i težnja za vatrom.
Osim mitoloških izvora, Bašlar se poziva i na izvore potekle iz istorije nauke, mahom 17. i 18. veka, a ponekad i na alhemiju. Umesto da se različite teorije odbacuju kao prevaziđene, čitaju se kao uzbuljiv poetski tekst, koji ide u prilog samoj Bašlarovoj intelektualnoj razigranosti. Iako Bašlar ne govori o potrebi za filološkim obrazovanjem, jasno je da u njegovom izlaganju filozofske problematike, filologija ima posebno mesto i to zbog fiksiranja pojmova. Vatra o kojoj će pisati antički filozof (ne samo Heraklit, o čijoj vatri tek može da se priča, već, npr. Plinije Stariji koji je tvrdio da daždevnjak zaista gasi svaki požar, na nesreću daždevnjaka, ali i svih onih koji su ova lepa bića upotrebljavali kao vatrogasno sredstvo), Paracelzus, francuski enciklopedisti ili neki savremeni naučnik, sasvim su različiti pojmovi. Staru Indiju i Kinu da ne pominjem. Potreba za opreznošću u priređivanju drevnih tekstova je neophodna, a samo prevođenje predstavlja jednu vrstu podrazumevane kritike. Ne mislim da komunikacija ideja nije moguća, naprotiv. Upravo zato što je moguća, dužni smo da pojmove osvetlimo iz vremena u kojem su upotrebljivani.
Ukoliko to izostane, nikad nam neće biti jasno šta je vatreno u vatri.
Niti kako se nekada objašnjavalo spontano samozapaljivanje, o kojem su i danas pravljene brojne emisije. (Sećam se tog izbezumljenja kad sam bio mali. Grozna pomisao – odjednom počneš da goriš i ništa ne možeš da uradiš.)
Niti – kakva je veza svetlosti i vatre?
Niti – da li je plamen u paklu isti kao plamen na zemlji i da li ima plamenja na nebu? Ako plamenja na nebu nema, zašto postoje nebeska tela, otkud zvezde, komete i kikoćući anđeli?
Pesnički duh se, veli Bašlar, u potpunosti pokorava zavodljivosti omiljene pesničke slike.
Shodno tome, o vatri može samo vatreno.
P. S. Ne znam ko je Vesna Cakeljić, nisam čitao njene prevode, ali ovaj, čini se, vapi za, ako ne lekturom, onda korekturom. Mnogo je slovnih, a ponegde i krupnijih grešaka, kao u sledećoj skarabudženoj rečenici: „U svakom slučaju, ja nikada ne pročitam tu stranicu neka objasni ko može ovo nepobitno zbližavanje – a da se setim dobrog i dostojanstvenog lekara sa zlatnim satom, koji me je pregledao u mom dečjem krevecu i smirivao mudrim rečima moju zabrinutu majku.” (str. 13) Kukiću, lektore plaćaj!
U traganju za vatrom u vatri, plamte uzbudljiva misaona putovanja. Tako Bašlar dolazi do aboridžanskih etioloških predanja o vatri, koja su uzbudljivo neusklađena – u prvom, vatra je nastala tako što su ptičice uspele da nasmeju izvesnu „podmuklu guju”, koja ju je pri smehu, ispustila iz čeljusti, pa su je bržebolje pokupile. (Inače, sad mi je palo na um, kako kažemo da je neko „prasnuo u smeh”. Svidelo bi se to Bašlaru.) U drugom, vatra je nastala iz rasečenog polnog uda stvorenja koje se zvalo „euro”. Nije jasno kako je ono izgledalo, a još manje kako ga je lovac uhvatio, ali upravo taj nedostatak informacija čini ga još intrigantnijim. Međutim, nešto više znamo o Prometeju, tom najvećem šverceru u istoriji sveta.
Kako je Bašlaru detalj svetinja, on ga misaono svetkuje. Razvija fenomenologiju ognjišta, refleksije o džaranju vatre, koje umiruje i donosi detinju ušuškanost, ili zadivljujuću poetiku taktilnosti. Dodir je zanemareno čulo. Razmišljajući o poreklu vatre, koje se vezuje za trenje, Bašlar trenje povezuje sa protoseksualnim impulsom, a svi pokreti koji uključuju interakciju individua, potiču od ovog trenja. Tako je milovanje sublimacija seksualnog trenja, koje je uprizoreno od pre-pamtiveka u prirodi. Ovi ukrštaji nisu samosvrhoviti – priča o pokretima samo je na korak udaljena priči o kulturi – kultivizaciji, a ona je tik uz razmišljanje o onome šta je osnova čoveka. Prateći Frojda (ali suštinski bivajući pre svega uz Junga), Bašlar tvrdi da je libido osnova homo fabera, i to ne samo u umetničkim, već u svim drugim njegovim aktivnostima. A libido je vatra i težnja za vatrom.
Osim mitoloških izvora, Bašlar se poziva i na izvore potekle iz istorije nauke, mahom 17. i 18. veka, a ponekad i na alhemiju. Umesto da se različite teorije odbacuju kao prevaziđene, čitaju se kao uzbuljiv poetski tekst, koji ide u prilog samoj Bašlarovoj intelektualnoj razigranosti. Iako Bašlar ne govori o potrebi za filološkim obrazovanjem, jasno je da u njegovom izlaganju filozofske problematike, filologija ima posebno mesto i to zbog fiksiranja pojmova. Vatra o kojoj će pisati antički filozof (ne samo Heraklit, o čijoj vatri tek može da se priča, već, npr. Plinije Stariji koji je tvrdio da daždevnjak zaista gasi svaki požar, na nesreću daždevnjaka, ali i svih onih koji su ova lepa bića upotrebljavali kao vatrogasno sredstvo), Paracelzus, francuski enciklopedisti ili neki savremeni naučnik, sasvim su različiti pojmovi. Staru Indiju i Kinu da ne pominjem. Potreba za opreznošću u priređivanju drevnih tekstova je neophodna, a samo prevođenje predstavlja jednu vrstu podrazumevane kritike. Ne mislim da komunikacija ideja nije moguća, naprotiv. Upravo zato što je moguća, dužni smo da pojmove osvetlimo iz vremena u kojem su upotrebljivani.
Ukoliko to izostane, nikad nam neće biti jasno šta je vatreno u vatri.
Niti kako se nekada objašnjavalo spontano samozapaljivanje, o kojem su i danas pravljene brojne emisije. (Sećam se tog izbezumljenja kad sam bio mali. Grozna pomisao – odjednom počneš da goriš i ništa ne možeš da uradiš.)
Niti – kakva je veza svetlosti i vatre?
Niti – da li je plamen u paklu isti kao plamen na zemlji i da li ima plamenja na nebu? Ako plamenja na nebu nema, zašto postoje nebeska tela, otkud zvezde, komete i kikoćući anđeli?
Pesnički duh se, veli Bašlar, u potpunosti pokorava zavodljivosti omiljene pesničke slike.
Shodno tome, o vatri može samo vatreno.
P. S. Ne znam ko je Vesna Cakeljić, nisam čitao njene prevode, ali ovaj, čini se, vapi za, ako ne lekturom, onda korekturom. Mnogo je slovnih, a ponegde i krupnijih grešaka, kao u sledećoj skarabudženoj rečenici: „U svakom slučaju, ja nikada ne pročitam tu stranicu neka objasni ko može ovo nepobitno zbližavanje – a da se setim dobrog i dostojanstvenog lekara sa zlatnim satom, koji me je pregledao u mom dečjem krevecu i smirivao mudrim rečima moju zabrinutu majku.” (str. 13) Kukiću, lektore plaćaj!
June 27, 2022
As part of our cultural tradition, the Fire-world was the world of heavenly bodies between heaven and the earth. The spirit descends from above in tongues of Fire, the seraphims are angels of Fire; for Christianity this world of superior spirits is all that is left of an unfallen world that god originally planned. The Fire-world, as an unfallen world of pre-creation, appears in Bachelard as the "Novalis Complex". The return of man to his original home, the myth of ascending Fire is symbolised by the funeral pyre of Hercules and connects all the way to Dante's purgatorial fire.
With the Romantics, this more specifically human Fire symbolising the raising of the human state to a semi-divine destiny transcends into a Prometheus-complex, especially when the revolutionaries are involved - Shelley, Byron, Hugo - who feel, like Ahab, that the right form of Fire-worship is and can only be defiance.
With the Romantics, this more specifically human Fire symbolising the raising of the human state to a semi-divine destiny transcends into a Prometheus-complex, especially when the revolutionaries are involved - Shelley, Byron, Hugo - who feel, like Ahab, that the right form of Fire-worship is and can only be defiance.
July 6, 2022
Bachelard makes the intriguing argument that one might analyze poetry in terms of which pre-scientific element—earth, air, fire or water—dominates in its imagery. His thesis is that our cosmologies contain subjective elements, reflected in metaphors, and that these subjective elements can be psychoanalyzed. In this respect, literary analysis is a psychoanalytic technique, and the metaphor is a kind of symptom (one finds similar suggestions in the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan).
Acquired 2007
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario
Acquired 2007
City Lights Book Shop, London, Ontario
February 4, 2015
I discovered this fascinating little book more or less by accident.
Gaston Bachelard is somewhat of an anomaly; in the great schism of modern philosophy early in the twentieth century, the (Austro-)Anglo-American tradition took as its "portion" logic, language, and philosophy of science, while the Continental tradition largely took social philosophy and metaphysics, but Bachelard was a philosopher of science within the Continental tradition, almost the only one.
His philosophy of science is naturally very different from anything else I've read; while the A-A-A philosophers at the time were essentially concerned with normative issues of logic and epistemology, with how we "ought" to do science -- later with Kuhn and company it turned toward sociological and socio-political description -- Bachelard was concerned with psychological apects of scientific investigation, what he describes as "the psychoanalysis of objective knowledge."
His point is that the scientists' theorizing is influenced by pre-scientific "complexes" derived from the experience of "reverie", which must be subjected to a form of "psychoanalysis" to be able to free oneself from these complexes and observe phenomena objectively. In this book he focuses on the various ideas relating to fire, and identifies pre-scientific groups of ideas which he calls the "Prometheus complex", "Empedocles complex", "Novalis complex", and "Hoffman complex", and traces them in early modern physical and chemical theories of the nature of fire.
While I wouldn't want to evaluate his overall theory based on such a short book, his discussions of the various ways that people experience fire, and the use of fire in mythology and literature is quite interesting and full of insights.
Gaston Bachelard is somewhat of an anomaly; in the great schism of modern philosophy early in the twentieth century, the (Austro-)Anglo-American tradition took as its "portion" logic, language, and philosophy of science, while the Continental tradition largely took social philosophy and metaphysics, but Bachelard was a philosopher of science within the Continental tradition, almost the only one.
His philosophy of science is naturally very different from anything else I've read; while the A-A-A philosophers at the time were essentially concerned with normative issues of logic and epistemology, with how we "ought" to do science -- later with Kuhn and company it turned toward sociological and socio-political description -- Bachelard was concerned with psychological apects of scientific investigation, what he describes as "the psychoanalysis of objective knowledge."
His point is that the scientists' theorizing is influenced by pre-scientific "complexes" derived from the experience of "reverie", which must be subjected to a form of "psychoanalysis" to be able to free oneself from these complexes and observe phenomena objectively. In this book he focuses on the various ideas relating to fire, and identifies pre-scientific groups of ideas which he calls the "Prometheus complex", "Empedocles complex", "Novalis complex", and "Hoffman complex", and traces them in early modern physical and chemical theories of the nature of fire.
While I wouldn't want to evaluate his overall theory based on such a short book, his discussions of the various ways that people experience fire, and the use of fire in mythology and literature is quite interesting and full of insights.
September 3, 2019
باشلار صاحب العقلية المستنيرة الذي يرى الاشياء ليس كما نراها نحن..
بمجرد ان تبدأ بقراءته ستتغير نظرتك و فكرتك عن النار!
يجب على كل اديب وروائي وكاتب ان يقرأ هذا الكتاب، لان به من الالهام والافكار ما يحتاجه كل كاتب!
بمجرد ان تبدأ بقراءته ستتغير نظرتك و فكرتك عن النار!
يجب على كل اديب وروائي وكاتب ان يقرأ هذا الكتاب، لان به من الالهام والافكار ما يحتاجه كل كاتب!
August 5, 2007
Before I read this, I thought it wasn't possible to psychoanalyze fire. I mean, you're not exactly going to get it to free associate. Boy was I wrong.
May 19, 2021
بازخوانی آثار گاستون باشلار به من نشان داد کتابهای خوب و باارزش را همیشه باید دوباره و دوباره خواند چون همیشه چیزهایی برای یاد گرفتن و فهمیدن در آنها وجود دارد که در خوانشهای قبلی به دست نیامده. فکر میکنم بار اول با وجودی که شیفتهی باشلار بودم اما این کتاب را اصلاً نفهمیده بودم.
کتابی کلاسیک در زمینهی پدیدارشناسی تصاویر خیالی یا آنطور که باشلار میگوید روانکاوی عناصر طبیعت. البته همان طور که جلال ستاری عزیز در مقدمه و موخره کتاب فلسفهی تحلیل و پدیدارشناسی تخیل را خلاصه میکند و شرح میدهد (در جاهایی خلاصه و در جاهایی شرح و تفسیر) بعضی از مطالب کتاب حتی از نظر خود گاستون باشلار هم در آینده نقض شد و تغییر کرد. به طوری که در کتاب کوچک شعلهی شمع (که آخرین کتاب باشلار بود و اولین کتابی که من از او خواندم) این پدیدارشناسی تصاویر ذهنی بسیار دقیقتر، روشمندتر و عمیقتر اتفاق میافتد؛ آن هم نه برای کلاً آتش که فقط برای شعلهی شمع! اما در هر حال این کتاب در زمانی که منتشر شد یعنی در 1938 انقلابی به وجود آورد و مسیری را برای گاستون باشلار فیزیکدان و فیلسوف علم و معرفتشناس باز کرد که درون هیچکدام از حوزههای آشنای قبلی موردمطالعهاش نبود و بود. گاستون باشلار در کتاب روانکاوی آتش هنوز به روانکاوی فرویدی متصل است و به همین خاطر از تحلیل تصاویر خیالی که در مورد آتش در میان شاعران و نویسندگان جمع کرده است عقدههایی روانی را تشخیص میدهد و در حقیقت فصول کتابش را با عقدههای روانی مربوط به آتش سر و سامان میدهد. گرچه در این کتاب هم در حال جدا شدن از روانکاوی کلاسیک فرویدی است و بیشتر به روانکاوی ضمیر ناخودآگاه جمعی یونگ سمت و سو دارد. مهمترین نقطه افتراقش هم این است که از تصاویر خیالی و ذهنی به قول خودش به سرعت به سمت معنا و منظور پنهان و پشت آن نمیرود؛ کاری که فروید در کتاب تعبیر خوابش انجام میدهد. به نظر گاستون باشلار تخیل به ذات خود تخیل زنده است و نه به معنایی که پشتش پنهان میکند. به همین خاطر عقدههای روانی هم برای باشلار حکم ابزارهایی برای تصعید یا والایش روانی هنرمند و شاعر است نه تفسیر و تعبیر روانکاوانه.
این کتاب گرچه فلسفی است اما به نظرم تمام کسانی که در میان هیاهوی طب سنتی ایرانی هم گرفتار شدهاند باید آن را بخوانند چون به زیبایی هر چه تمام به ما ریشههای تفکرات پیشاعلمی را نشان میدهد و دست این کیمیاگریها را برای انسان رو میکند. البته جالب اینجاست که راه و روش باشلار مثلاً در پدیدارشناسی همین کیمیاگری به شکلی است که هم به آنها به عنوان یک نوع تفکر خیالپردازانه و شاعرانه احترام میگذارد و هم آنها را با نهایت بیرحمی و عقل مدرن خود نقد میکند.
ترجمهی جلال ستاری هم عالی است و از همه مهمتر پانویسهای این مترجم است که این کتاب را به چیزی بیش از کتابی از گاستون باشلار تبدیل کرده است. به جز رویکرد توضیحی و انتقادی مقدمهای که او بر این کتاب نوشته در جای جای کتاب شاهد مثالهایی از ادبیات و عرفان ایرانی هم آورده است. مثالهایی دقیق و عمیق از بطن فرهنگ خودی که هم باعث میشود مطالب کتاب بهتر به ذهن آدم بنشیند و هم نگاهی دور از شیفتگی و همراه با انتقاد به فرهنگ خودمان بیاندازیم. از جلال ستاری عزیز و بزرگ برای شناساندن گاستون باشلار به ایرانیان و مهمتر از آن برای رشد فرهنگ تفکر انتقادی خیلی خیلی ممنون و سپاسگزارم.
کتابی کلاسیک در زمینهی پدیدارشناسی تصاویر خیالی یا آنطور که باشلار میگوید روانکاوی عناصر طبیعت. البته همان طور که جلال ستاری عزیز در مقدمه و موخره کتاب فلسفهی تحلیل و پدیدارشناسی تخیل را خلاصه میکند و شرح میدهد (در جاهایی خلاصه و در جاهایی شرح و تفسیر) بعضی از مطالب کتاب حتی از نظر خود گاستون باشلار هم در آینده نقض شد و تغییر کرد. به طوری که در کتاب کوچک شعلهی شمع (که آخرین کتاب باشلار بود و اولین کتابی که من از او خواندم) این پدیدارشناسی تصاویر ذهنی بسیار دقیقتر، روشمندتر و عمیقتر اتفاق میافتد؛ آن هم نه برای کلاً آتش که فقط برای شعلهی شمع! اما در هر حال این کتاب در زمانی که منتشر شد یعنی در 1938 انقلابی به وجود آورد و مسیری را برای گاستون باشلار فیزیکدان و فیلسوف علم و معرفتشناس باز کرد که درون هیچکدام از حوزههای آشنای قبلی موردمطالعهاش نبود و بود. گاستون باشلار در کتاب روانکاوی آتش هنوز به روانکاوی فرویدی متصل است و به همین خاطر از تحلیل تصاویر خیالی که در مورد آتش در میان شاعران و نویسندگان جمع کرده است عقدههایی روانی را تشخیص میدهد و در حقیقت فصول کتابش را با عقدههای روانی مربوط به آتش سر و سامان میدهد. گرچه در این کتاب هم در حال جدا شدن از روانکاوی کلاسیک فرویدی است و بیشتر به روانکاوی ضمیر ناخودآگاه جمعی یونگ سمت و سو دارد. مهمترین نقطه افتراقش هم این است که از تصاویر خیالی و ذهنی به قول خودش به سرعت به سمت معنا و منظور پنهان و پشت آن نمیرود؛ کاری که فروید در کتاب تعبیر خوابش انجام میدهد. به نظر گاستون باشلار تخیل به ذات خود تخیل زنده است و نه به معنایی که پشتش پنهان میکند. به همین خاطر عقدههای روانی هم برای باشلار حکم ابزارهایی برای تصعید یا والایش روانی هنرمند و شاعر است نه تفسیر و تعبیر روانکاوانه.
این کتاب گرچه فلسفی است اما به نظرم تمام کسانی که در میان هیاهوی طب سنتی ایرانی هم گرفتار شدهاند باید آن را بخوانند چون به زیبایی هر چه تمام به ما ریشههای تفکرات پیشاعلمی را نشان میدهد و دست این کیمیاگریها را برای انسان رو میکند. البته جالب اینجاست که راه و روش باشلار مثلاً در پدیدارشناسی همین کیمیاگری به شکلی است که هم به آنها به عنوان یک نوع تفکر خیالپردازانه و شاعرانه احترام میگذارد و هم آنها را با نهایت بیرحمی و عقل مدرن خود نقد میکند.
ترجمهی جلال ستاری هم عالی است و از همه مهمتر پانویسهای این مترجم است که این کتاب را به چیزی بیش از کتابی از گاستون باشلار تبدیل کرده است. به جز رویکرد توضیحی و انتقادی مقدمهای که او بر این کتاب نوشته در جای جای کتاب شاهد مثالهایی از ادبیات و عرفان ایرانی هم آورده است. مثالهایی دقیق و عمیق از بطن فرهنگ خودی که هم باعث میشود مطالب کتاب بهتر به ذهن آدم بنشیند و هم نگاهی دور از شیفتگی و همراه با انتقاد به فرهنگ خودمان بیاندازیم. از جلال ستاری عزیز و بزرگ برای شناساندن گاستون باشلار به ایرانیان و مهمتر از آن برای رشد فرهنگ تفکر انتقادی خیلی خیلی ممنون و سپاسگزارم.
January 7, 2018
موضوع هذا الكتاب هو التحليل النفسى للمعرفة الموضوعية، أو التحليل النفسى للمعرفة التى تتسم تجاوزا بسمة الموضوعية، بخصوص النار، فتصورات البشر الموضوعية عن النار فى العصور التى سماها الكاتب ب"عصور ما قبل العلم" إذا خضعت لهذا التحليل النفسى، يمكن ردّها إلى مجموعة من أحلام اليقظة، أو مجموعة من الحدوس القَبْلية فى اللا وعى، والتى تشكلت بذكريات وانطباعات جمالية من الطفولة، كمجوعة من العُقَد، مثل، عقدة "أنبادوقليس" : وهى عقدة ترجع لحدس جمالى جنسى بما يسمى ب"نداء المحرقة" أو الرغبة الممتزجة بحركة التلاشى السريعة للمشهد البصرى للنار. ومثل عقدة " برومثيوس" وهى عقدة ترجع كذلك لحدس جمالى وجنسى تشكل منذ الطفولة بخصوص فكرة الفاكهة المحرمة الممثلة فى لمس النار. ومثل عقد أخرى يشرحها الكاتب عبر فصول الكتاب ويذكر تجلياتها فى الأعمال الشعرية والأدبية، وفى الأدب المتسم زيفا بسمة العلم والمعرفة الموضوعية لعصور ما قبل العلم. وأكبر مثال على هذا التراث العلمى الزائف هو الخيميائية، فالخيميائية هى عبارة عن تماهى مع حلم يقظة جنسى بنار الموقد الموجودة داخل المنزل، وهى قبل كل شىء محاولة لطبع الحب البشرى فى قلب الأشياء، وليس محاولة لتناول الأشياء تناولا موضوعيا. ١
كذلك فإن روح النصف الثانى من القرن العشرين تشيع فى هذا الكتاب، وهى الروح التى أعادت النظر لعقائد الإنسان البدائى وفنونه، واعتبرت أن هذه الفنون هى انطباعات تولدت فى جو من ترف الرغبات، لا بؤس الاحتياجات كما هو تصور الأنثروبولوجيا الكلاسيكية. فالرغبة هى شىء متجاوز .. بشرى تولّد فى مساحة من الفراغ كمجرد تجل لإمكانيات الإنسان العقلية، كما فى بنيوية ليفى شتراوس، أما الحاجة فهى شىء ضرورى بسيط وحيوانى و يمكن تفسيره بالكامل تفسيرا ذرائعيا. وفى هذا الكتاب يُرجح الكاتب إن اكتشاف النار والتصورات البدائية عنها هى نتاج لحدوس جمالية تعاطفية ومندمجة مع الطبيعة، وليس مجرد نتاج لحاجة الإنسان للتدفئة والطهى. ٢
الكتاب قصير، سريع، وهو انتقائى يعبر عن فكرته بمقاطع قصيرة، ضمن فصول قصيرة، ولا يعتبر بحثا متقصيا أو مستطردا، ربما يبعث هذا على الضيق أحيانا وافتقاد الوجهة أثناء القراءة، ولكنه مقتطفاته السريعة فى منتهى الشياكة والذكاء التى تبلغ درجة من الإلهام المبهر باللفتات الشعرية. ٣
كذلك فإن روح النصف الثانى من القرن العشرين تشيع فى هذا الكتاب، وهى الروح التى أعادت النظر لعقائد الإنسان البدائى وفنونه، واعتبرت أن هذه الفنون هى انطباعات تولدت فى جو من ترف الرغبات، لا بؤس الاحتياجات كما هو تصور الأنثروبولوجيا الكلاسيكية. فالرغبة هى شىء متجاوز .. بشرى تولّد فى مساحة من الفراغ كمجرد تجل لإمكانيات الإنسان العقلية، كما فى بنيوية ليفى شتراوس، أما الحاجة فهى شىء ضرورى بسيط وحيوانى و يمكن تفسيره بالكامل تفسيرا ذرائعيا. وفى هذا الكتاب يُرجح الكاتب إن اكتشاف النار والتصورات البدائية عنها هى نتاج لحدوس جمالية تعاطفية ومندمجة مع الطبيعة، وليس مجرد نتاج لحاجة الإنسان للتدفئة والطهى. ٢
الكتاب قصير، سريع، وهو انتقائى يعبر عن فكرته بمقاطع قصيرة، ضمن فصول قصيرة، ولا يعتبر بحثا متقصيا أو مستطردا، ربما يبعث هذا على الضيق أحيانا وافتقاد الوجهة أثناء القراءة، ولكنه مقتطفاته السريعة فى منتهى الشياكة والذكاء التى تبلغ درجة من الإلهام المبهر باللفتات الشعرية. ٣
October 29, 2016
Generally, I truly enjoy reading Gaston Bachelard. He has a very poetic style with which he writes; but this book was perhaps one of the most frustrating books I've read - for the reason that there is nothing which even the Bachelard seems to want the reader to gain from having read this book. It is a collection of various subjective meditations in which he often draws from various psychoanalytic and literary resources. But as I read the book I kept asking myself what is the point of this, what is he ultimately trying to say, and I could not get it.
July 21, 2016
الكتاب يَتناول موضوع ماهية النار؟ فلسفياً وسيكولجياً منذ إكتشاف النار عند الإنسان البدائي ومالذي جعله يعرف بأن ما سيولده خلال احتكاك قطعتي الخشب يُسمى نارً؟ أهي المعرفة الموضوعية أم الخبرة الذاتية المُسبقة والتي رُبِطت بعناصر جنسية. إلى النار الكهربائية ونار الحياة: الحرارة الطبيعية في كل المخلوقات الحية. الكتآب مقسم إلى سبعة فصول يتناول فيها عدة عقد في التحليل النفسي للنار ، لآ بأس به نوعاً ما.. أحببت طريقة بآشلار في السرد الفلسفي الشعري ، فريد من نوعه.
Read
February 12, 2020"-ateşe saygı öğretilmiş bir saygıdır; doğal bir saygı değildir."
Kıvılcım belki kıvılcımın beraberinde oluşturduğu yavaş ya da hızlı bir yakım. Bu yanmanın karşısında oluşturduğumuz refleks. Bu refleks doğal mı? Kundaklamanın özgürleştirici yanları. Yanmasına karşın müdahaleden kaçınma. Sobanın yanına kurulup sıcaklığı ile mayışma. Belki portakal, mandalina kabuklarının etkisi. Ateş: korku. Ateş: sıcaklık. Çıkarılan kurşun yarasını dağladığı.
Kıvılcım belki kıvılcımın beraberinde oluşturduğu yavaş ya da hızlı bir yakım. Bu yanmanın karşısında oluşturduğumuz refleks. Bu refleks doğal mı? Kundaklamanın özgürleştirici yanları. Yanmasına karşın müdahaleden kaçınma. Sobanın yanına kurulup sıcaklığı ile mayışma. Belki portakal, mandalina kabuklarının etkisi. Ateş: korku. Ateş: sıcaklık. Çıkarılan kurşun yarasını dağladığı.
October 22, 2020
عرف عن تحليلات باشلار أنها مثيرة للجدل، يطرق فيها مواضيع لم تطرق من قبل.
هذا الكتاب من سبعة فصول - ٢٠٠ صفحة
كل فصل عبارة عن مجموعة مقالات .
١- احترام وتبجيل النار
٢- النار وحلم اليقظة
٣- التحليل النفسي وعودة إلى ما قبل التاريخ
٤- النار الجنسية
٥- كيمياء النار
٦- الكحول والماء المشتعل
٧- عندما تصبح النار مثالاً
يحلل باشلار العلاقة النفسية والعاطفية والاجتماعية بين الإنسان والنار.
ويعتبر أن طريقة تحليله مختلفة جداً.. فهو يرى أن العلماء يجب أن يضعوا أنفسهم مكان الإنسان البدائي الذي كانت عملية التفكير لديه عبارة عن أحلام يقظة أصيلة مستلهمة من تجاربه وخبراته البسيطة والمحدودة.
إن احترام الإنسان للنار احترام مكتسب، متوارث منذ الإنسان الأول ( ماقبل العقلية العلمية ) إذ أسقط عليها عواطفه ومشاعره حتى صارت رمز للفرح والخصوبة.
كيف أمكن الإنسان البدائي أن يفكر في الاحتكاك كوسيلة لإشعال النار إن لم يكن استلهمها من تجربة الحب؟
بهذا التفسير البسيط سنجد أن الكثير من الأساطير حول النار تصبح سهلة التفسير
هل النار كائن أم مادة ؟
النار لها دورة حياة و تلتهم كل شيء ولديها القدرة على الحركة وتحتاج الهواء كما أن لها فضلات - الرماد
تبدو النار وكأنها كامنة في ذات الأشياء .. تتحين الفرصة للاشتعال ..
فإذا كان الكحول مثلاً سريع الاشتعال فهل يعني أنه نار سائلة يصبها المرء في جوفه ؟
تأخذ النار رمزيات عديدة.. فهي رمز الفرح والأعياد - الشمس
ورمز الطهارة والخصوبة - تطهر الجروح و الأراضي من الآفات وتهيئ التربة للزراعة
رمز للحب ..
رمز للرقة - في تحمير الأكل و صنع الزجاج وصهر المعادن
...
الكتاب غريب جداً ومثير للاهتمام.. غير نظرتي للنار ..
الأفكار في الفصل الواحد ليست مترابطة.. والترجمة صعبة نوعاً ما.
هذا الكتاب من سبعة فصول - ٢٠٠ صفحة
كل فصل عبارة عن مجموعة مقالات .
١- احترام وتبجيل النار
٢- النار وحلم اليقظة
٣- التحليل النفسي وعودة إلى ما قبل التاريخ
٤- النار الجنسية
٥- كيمياء النار
٦- الكحول والماء المشتعل
٧- عندما تصبح النار مثالاً
يحلل باشلار العلاقة النفسية والعاطفية والاجتماعية بين الإنسان والنار.
ويعتبر أن طريقة تحليله مختلفة جداً.. فهو يرى أن العلماء يجب أن يضعوا أنفسهم مكان الإنسان البدائي الذي كانت عملية التفكير لديه عبارة عن أحلام يقظة أصيلة مستلهمة من تجاربه وخبراته البسيطة والمحدودة.
إن احترام الإنسان للنار احترام مكتسب، متوارث منذ الإنسان الأول ( ماقبل العقلية العلمية ) إذ أسقط عليها عواطفه ومشاعره حتى صارت رمز للفرح والخصوبة.
كيف أمكن الإنسان البدائي أن يفكر في الاحتكاك كوسيلة لإشعال النار إن لم يكن استلهمها من تجربة الحب؟
بهذا التفسير البسيط سنجد أن الكثير من الأساطير حول النار تصبح سهلة التفسير
هل النار كائن أم مادة ؟
النار لها دورة حياة و تلتهم كل شيء ولديها القدرة على الحركة وتحتاج الهواء كما أن لها فضلات - الرماد
تبدو النار وكأنها كامنة في ذات الأشياء .. تتحين الفرصة للاشتعال ..
فإذا كان الكحول مثلاً سريع الاشتعال فهل يعني أنه نار سائلة يصبها المرء في جوفه ؟
تأخذ النار رمزيات عديدة.. فهي رمز الفرح والأعياد - الشمس
ورمز الطهارة والخصوبة - تطهر الجروح و الأراضي من الآفات وتهيئ التربة للزراعة
رمز للحب ..
رمز للرقة - في تحمير الأكل و صنع الزجاج وصهر المعادن
...
الكتاب غريب جداً ومثير للاهتمام.. غير نظرتي للنار ..
الأفكار في الفصل الواحد ليست مترابطة.. والترجمة صعبة نوعاً ما.
January 12, 2019
I was fascinated by the title and intrigued by the subject matter of this book, but after reading it I can't really recommend it for anything other than a snapshot of its time. To be fair on Bachelard he does say in the introduction that after reading this book, you will not have gained any knowledge whatsoever. In this he is absolutely correct.
Bachelard's thesis is that humans' relationship with fire is so ancient and vital that it is almost impossible for us to look at fire objectively. He claims that no scientist has ever adequately explained the phenomenon of fire and that scientists, being human, always start off with preconceptions which taint their writings on fire. He takes a psychoanalytic approach to examining how these preconceptions come about. This being psychoanalysis, there is an awful lot about sex - I mean, it's obvious isn't it, you *rub* two things together and the result is a child: fire. After explaining a number of such human aspects which we unconsciously attribute to fire, Bachelard goes on to spend several chapters mocking the work of scientists of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Given some of the wildly unfounded claims with which Bachelard backs up his arguments, he is on very shaky ground here: reading his book 80 years on, his own arguments look every bit as ridiculous as those he criticises.
Bachelard's thesis is that humans' relationship with fire is so ancient and vital that it is almost impossible for us to look at fire objectively. He claims that no scientist has ever adequately explained the phenomenon of fire and that scientists, being human, always start off with preconceptions which taint their writings on fire. He takes a psychoanalytic approach to examining how these preconceptions come about. This being psychoanalysis, there is an awful lot about sex - I mean, it's obvious isn't it, you *rub* two things together and the result is a child: fire. After explaining a number of such human aspects which we unconsciously attribute to fire, Bachelard goes on to spend several chapters mocking the work of scientists of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Given some of the wildly unfounded claims with which Bachelard backs up his arguments, he is on very shaky ground here: reading his book 80 years on, his own arguments look every bit as ridiculous as those he criticises.
August 24, 2024
• Preface
o Nearly a century ago Thomas Huxley, discussing the limitations of the scientific method, remarked: “I cannot conceive how the phenomena of consciousness as such are to be brought within the bounds of physical science
o The scientific procedure normally begins empirically, with reality thought of first of all as “out there/’ after which it gradually becomes incorporated into an intellectual construct.
o The arts, on the other hand, begin with a constructing power, generally called imagination, and embody it in forms with a clarity of communication that makes them objects of perception to others. The units of this constructing power are analogy and identity, which appear in literature as the figures of simile and metaphor.
o To the imagination, fire is not a separable datum of experience: it is already linked by analogy and identity with a dozen other aspects of experience. Its heat is analogous to the internal heat we feel as warm-blooded animals; its sparks are analogous to vitality; its flames are phallic symbols, providing a further analogy to sexual acts, as the ambiguity of the word “consummation” indicates; its transforming power is analogous to purgation.
o It is possible to take up a construct based on such analogies and correspondences, and then apply it to the external world as a key to the explanation of its phenomena. From one point of view, a somewhat narrow one, such constructs are both bastard art and bastard science, combining the limitations of the two with the genuine achievements of neither. A more liberal view might see them rather as helping to expand the horizons of both.
o Earth, air, water and fire are still the four elements of imaginative experience, and always will be.
• Introduction
o We have only to speak of an object to think that we are being objective. But, because we chose it in the first place, the object reveals more about us than we do about it.
o But the initial source is impure: the first impression is not a fundamental truth. In point of fact, scientific objectivity is possible only if one has broken first with the immediate object, if one has refused to yield to the seduction of the initial choice, if one has checked and contradicted the thoughts which arise from one’s first observation.
o Any objective examination, when duly verified, refutes the results of the first contact with the object. To start with, every¬ thing must be called into question: sensation, common sense, usage however constant, even etymology, for words, which are made for singing and enchanting, rarely make contact with thought. Far from marvelling at the object, objective thought must treat it ironically. MALIGN VIGILANCE.
o When confronted with this inert world whose life is not ours, which suffers none of our sorrows not is exalted by any of our joys, we must restrain all our enthusiasms, we must repress our personal feelings. The axes of poetry and of science are opposed to one another from the outset. All that philosophy can hope to accomplish is to make poetry and science complementary, to unite them as two well-defined opposites. We must oppose, then, to the enthusiastic, poetic mind the taciturn, scientific mind, and for the scientific mind an attitude of preliminary antipathy is a healthy precaution.
o We are going to study the psychological problem posed by our convictions about fire. It seems to me so definitely psychological in nature that I do not hesitate to speak of a psycho¬analysis of fire.
o Contemporary science has almost completely neglected the truly primordial problem that the phenomena of fire pose for the untutored mind. The question “What is Fire?” has fallen within a zone that is only partially objective, a zone in which personal intuitions and scientific experiments are intermingled.
o We shall devote part of our efforts to showing that reverie takes up the same primitive themes time and again and always operates as it would in primitive minds, and this in spite of the successes of systematic thought and even in face of die findings of scientific experiments.
o We would like, however, to add a further remark by way of warning. When our reader has finished reading this book he will in no way have increased his knowledge. This will not be entirely our fault, perhaps, but rather will be the price that must be paid for the method we have selected. When we turn inwards upon ourselves we turn aside from truth. When we carry out inner experiments, we inevitably contradict objective experiment. Again it must be repeated that in this book when we talk of our personal experiences we are demonstrating human errors. Our work is offered, then, as an example of that special psychoanalysis that we believe would form a useful basis for all objective studies.
• 1. Fire and Respect: The Prometheus Complex
• Fire and heat provide modes of explanation in the most varied domains, because they have been for us the occasion for unforgettable memories, for simple and decisive personal experiences. Fire is thus a privileged phenomenon which can explain anything. If all that changes slowly may be explained by life, all that changes quickly is explained by fire. Fire is the ultra-living element. It is intimate. It is gentleness and torture. It is cookery and it is apocalypse
• 18C Doctor’s page:
I mean by this fire noc a violent, tumultuous, irritating and unnatural heat which burns instead of cooking the bodily humors just as it does the foods; but rather that gentle, moderate, aromatic fire which is accompanied by a certain humidity having an affinity with that of blood and which penetrates the heterogeneous humors as well as the nutritious juices, separates them, wears them down, polishes the roughness and bitterness of their several parts and finally brings them to such a degree of gentleness and refinement that they are now adapted to our nature
In this page there is not a single argument, noc a single epithet, which can be granted an objective meaning. And yet how convincing it is! To me it seems to combine the persuasive power of the doctor and the insinuating power of the remedy. Just as Are is the most insinuating of medicaments, so in extolling its virtues the doctor is his most persuasive. In any case, I never reread this page—let him who can explain this invincible association— without remembering the grave and kindly doctor with the gold watch who used to come to my bedside when I was a child and who would calm my worried mother with one learned word. It would be a winter’s morning in our poor home. The fire would be shining in the hearth. They would give me syrup of Tolu. I can remember how I would lick the spoon. Where are they, those days filled with the warm smell of balsam and the hot aromas of the medicines?
• PSYCHOANALYSIS OF OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE: a question of finding how unconscious values affect the very basis of empirical and scientific knowledge. We must then show the mutual light which objective and social knowledge constantly sheds on subjective and personal knowledge, and vice versa. We must show in the scientific experiment traces of the experience of the child. Thus we shall be justified in speaking of an unconscious of the scientific mind—of the heterogeneous nature of certain concepts, and we shall see converging, in our study of any particular phenomenon, convictions that have been formed in the most varied fields.
one of the advantages of the psychoanalysis of objective knowledge that we are proposing to carry out seems to be that we are examining a zone that is less deep than that in which the primitive instincts function; and it is because this zone is intermediary that it has a determinative action on clear thought, on scientific thought.
• Social interdiction as first general knowledge of fire
The child wishes to do what his father does, but far away from his father’s presence, and so like a little Prometheus he steals some matches. He then heads for the fields where, in the hollow of a little valley, he and his companions build a secret fireplace that will keep them warm on the days when they decide to play truant from school. The city child has little acquaintance with the joys of the fire flaming up between three stones; he has not tasted the fried sloe nor the snail that has been placed all slimy on the fiery embers. He may very well escape the 'Prometheus complex whose action I have often experienced. Only this complex enables us to understand the interest that is always aroused by the rather trite legend of the father of Fire.
We propose, then, to place together under the name of the Prometheus complex all those tendencies which impel us to know as much as our fathers, more than our fathers, as much as our teachers, more than our teachers. Now it is by handling the object, it is by perfecting our objective knowledge, that we can best hope to prove decisively that we have attained the intellectual level that we have so admired in our parents and in our teachers. The acquiring of supremacy through the drive of more powerful instincts naturally will appeal to a much greater number of individuals, but minds o f a rarer stamp also must be examined by the psychologist. If pure intellectuality is exceptional, it is nonetheless very characteristic of a specifically human evolution. The Prometheus complex is the Oedipus complex of the life of the intellect.
• 2. Fire and Reverie; The Empedocles Complex
• Psychology has studied the pyromaniac, psychology of trauma from fires. These two poles are passed like torches, a contagion of lonely dreams
• Psychoanalysis has, for its part, studied dreams of fire.
• Since we are limiting ourselves to psychoanalyzing a psychic layer that is LESS DEEP, more intellectualized, we must replace the study of dreams by the study of reverie, and, more particularly, in this little book we must study the reverie before the fire.
• In our opinion, this REVERIE is entirely different from the dream by the very fact that it is always more or less centered upon one object. The dream proceeds on its way in linear fashion, forgetting its original path as it hastens along. The reverie works in a star pattern. It returns to its center to shoot out new beams.
The fire confined to the fireplace was no doubt for man the first object of reverie, the symbol of repose, the invitation to repose. One can hardly conceive of a philosophy of repose that would not include a reverie before a flaming log fire. Thus, in our opinion, to be deprived of a reverie before a burning fire is to lose the first use and the truly human use of fire.
A special kind of attention, rarely utilized for other contemplation. When near the fire, one must be seated; one must rest without sleeping; one must engage in reverie on a specific object.
• The conquest of the superfluous gives us a greater spiritual excitement than the conquest of the necessary. Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need (disputing utilitarian arguments for taming of fire)
• The reverie by the fireside has axes that are more philosophical.
• Empedocles Complex
Seen in work of George Sand. Traveler climbs mt Etna at night to see Sicily in sunrise, stops to sleep in Goat Grotto. Can’t sleep, dreams before his fire of logs, remains with elbow on knees. In fire he sees “reduced image” of eruption of Mt Etna
This is an axis of magnifying reverie–admiring a spectacle one has never seen!
Wishes he had the eyes of an ant to admire the burning log. Then thinks of moths, blind joy and love’s frenzy, hurling into fire on logs!
Love, death and fire are united at the same moment. Through its sacrifice in the heart of the flames, the mayfly gives us a lesson in eternity. This total death which leaves no trace is the guarantee that our whole person has departed for the beyond. To lose everything in order to gain everything.
Fire evoking volcano and funeral pyre.
Empedocles chooses a death which fuses him into the pure element of the Volcano.
Death in the flame is the least lonely of deaths. It is truly a cosmic death in which a whole universe is reduced to nothingness along with the thinker. The funeral pyre accom¬panies him in his passing.
• 3. Psychoanalysis and Prehistory: The Novalis Complex
• What psychoanalysis has not yet completely system¬atized—although the works of C. G. Jung have cast a bright fight upon this point—is the study of scientific explanations, of objective explanations, which purport to account for the dis¬coveries of prehistoric man. In this chapter we shall bring together and complete the observations of C. G. Jung by calling attention to the weakness of rational explanations.
• Scientific explanations must
Be appropriate for prehistoric discoveries
Must move beyond arid and cursory rationalism which claims to be profiting by recurring factual evidence but which is, however, quite unrelated to the psychological conditions of the primitive discoveries.
• How was fire tamed?
Not from mimicking lightning, as has been suggested. That phenomenon in its natural aspect has never been observed, and cannot be assumed to link to rubbing of things.
Shock, not rubbing, happens at that site.
• So the traditional rational, objective explanation of invention of fire is unsatisfying.
• What is a satisfying psychological explanation?
Rubbing as highly sexualized experience. The love act is the first scientific hypothesis about the objective reproduction of fire.
• The generally accepted method of throwing light upon the psychology of prehistoric man is to study still existing primitive peoples. But for a psychoanalysis of objective knowledge there are other instances of primitiveness which seem to us to be ultimately more pertinent. NOT ABOUT CASE STUDIES OF THEN-BODIES BUT STUDIES OF PRIMITIVENESS IN OURS.
• PSYCHOLOGY OF PRIMITIVENESS
• The warm sense of well-being arising from physical love must have been transferred into many primitive experiences. To set fire to the stick by sliding it up and down in the groove in the piece of dry wood takes time and patience. But this work must have been very agreeable to an individual whose reverie was wholly sexual. It was perhaps while engaged in this gentle task that man learned to sing. In any case it is an obviously rhythmic kind of task, a task which answers to the rhythm of the worker, which brings him lovely, multiple reso¬ nances: the arm that rubs, the pieces o f wood that strike together, the voice that sings, all are united in the same harmony and the same rhythm ic increase in energy; everything converges on to the one hope, on to an objective whose value is known.
• The eurhythmy of an active rubbing motion, on condition that it be sufficiently gentle and prolonged, brings about a euphoria.
• We propose to seek out systematically the component elements of the Libido in all primitive activities. Indeed, it is not only in art that the Libido is sublimated. It is the source of all the works of homo faber.
• Someone undoubtedly stated it very well when he defined man as: a hand and a language. But the useful gestures must not hide the agreeable gestures. The hand is the organ that caresses, just as the voice is the organ that sings. Primitively, caress and work must have been associated.
• [Survey of myths from around the world; the passing over from metaphor to reality]
• Novalis complex
All of Novalis’ poetry could receive a new interpretation, if we would apply to it the psychoanalysis of fire. This poetry is an attempt to re-live primitivity.
• 4. Sexualized Fire
• The conquest of fire was originally a sexual “conquest”
• There is a necessity for a psychoanalysis of objective knowledge.
• So much of fire as conceptualized is wrong because: as error becomes cloaked by the unconscious, as it loses its precise outline, it be¬ comes more acceptable. It would require only one further step in this direction to attain the gentle safety of philosophical meta¬phors.
• The unconscious marries a touch of mystery and the force of the primitive image, heavily charged primitive fallacies and lovers’ dreams.
• All philosophy (and alchemy and science) here is penetrated by an immense sexual reverie…a reverie of power. This sexual reverie is a fireside reverie. Far from being a description of the objective phenomena, it is an attempt to inscribe human love at the heart of things.
• The persistence of obscure images of fire (opening of bodies, possession of bodies from within, total possession, masculine and feminine) in areas in which direct symbolization remains confused, proves the sexual origin of the ideas about fire.
• Sexualized fire is preeminently the connecting link for all symbols. It unites matter and spirit, vice and virtue. It idealizes materialistic knowledge; it materializes idealistic knowledge. It is the principle of an essential ambiguity which is not without charm, but which must be continually recognized and psycho¬-analyzed in order that we may criticize both the materialists and the idealists: “ I am manipulating,” says the Alchemist. “ No, you are dreaming.”
• Homo faber is the man of surfaces, his mind is fixed on a few familiar objects, on a few crude geometric forms. For him the sphere has no center, it is simply the objective counterpart of the rounding gesture he makes with his cupped hands. On the other hand the dreaming man seated before his fireplace is the man concerned with inner depths, a man in the process of development.
• To this phenomenon through fire, to this most noticeable of all phenomena, which is marked, however, in the depths of the substance, a name must be given: the first phenomenon which merited man’s attention was the pyromenon or product of fire. We shall now see how this fire product, which was so intimately understood by prehistoric man, has for centuries foiled attempts at explanation on the part of scientists.
• 5. The Chemistry of Fire: History of a False Problem
• In our opinion this problem is really not one of scientific history, for the scientific part of the problem is falsified by the importation of the values whose action we have demonstrated in the preceding chapters. As a result, we really have to deal only with the history of the confusions that have been accumulated in the field of science by intuitions about fire. These intuitions are epistemological obstacles which are all the more difficult to overcome since they are psychologically clearer.
• In perhaps a slightly roundabout way we are still dealing, then, with a psychoanalysis which is really continuous in spite of the difference in viewpoint. Instead of turning to the poet and the dreamer, this psychoanalysis pays particular attention to the chemists and the biologists of past centuries, But
o Nearly a century ago Thomas Huxley, discussing the limitations of the scientific method, remarked: “I cannot conceive how the phenomena of consciousness as such are to be brought within the bounds of physical science
o The scientific procedure normally begins empirically, with reality thought of first of all as “out there/’ after which it gradually becomes incorporated into an intellectual construct.
o The arts, on the other hand, begin with a constructing power, generally called imagination, and embody it in forms with a clarity of communication that makes them objects of perception to others. The units of this constructing power are analogy and identity, which appear in literature as the figures of simile and metaphor.
o To the imagination, fire is not a separable datum of experience: it is already linked by analogy and identity with a dozen other aspects of experience. Its heat is analogous to the internal heat we feel as warm-blooded animals; its sparks are analogous to vitality; its flames are phallic symbols, providing a further analogy to sexual acts, as the ambiguity of the word “consummation” indicates; its transforming power is analogous to purgation.
o It is possible to take up a construct based on such analogies and correspondences, and then apply it to the external world as a key to the explanation of its phenomena. From one point of view, a somewhat narrow one, such constructs are both bastard art and bastard science, combining the limitations of the two with the genuine achievements of neither. A more liberal view might see them rather as helping to expand the horizons of both.
o Earth, air, water and fire are still the four elements of imaginative experience, and always will be.
• Introduction
o We have only to speak of an object to think that we are being objective. But, because we chose it in the first place, the object reveals more about us than we do about it.
o But the initial source is impure: the first impression is not a fundamental truth. In point of fact, scientific objectivity is possible only if one has broken first with the immediate object, if one has refused to yield to the seduction of the initial choice, if one has checked and contradicted the thoughts which arise from one’s first observation.
o Any objective examination, when duly verified, refutes the results of the first contact with the object. To start with, every¬ thing must be called into question: sensation, common sense, usage however constant, even etymology, for words, which are made for singing and enchanting, rarely make contact with thought. Far from marvelling at the object, objective thought must treat it ironically. MALIGN VIGILANCE.
o When confronted with this inert world whose life is not ours, which suffers none of our sorrows not is exalted by any of our joys, we must restrain all our enthusiasms, we must repress our personal feelings. The axes of poetry and of science are opposed to one another from the outset. All that philosophy can hope to accomplish is to make poetry and science complementary, to unite them as two well-defined opposites. We must oppose, then, to the enthusiastic, poetic mind the taciturn, scientific mind, and for the scientific mind an attitude of preliminary antipathy is a healthy precaution.
o We are going to study the psychological problem posed by our convictions about fire. It seems to me so definitely psychological in nature that I do not hesitate to speak of a psycho¬analysis of fire.
o Contemporary science has almost completely neglected the truly primordial problem that the phenomena of fire pose for the untutored mind. The question “What is Fire?” has fallen within a zone that is only partially objective, a zone in which personal intuitions and scientific experiments are intermingled.
o We shall devote part of our efforts to showing that reverie takes up the same primitive themes time and again and always operates as it would in primitive minds, and this in spite of the successes of systematic thought and even in face of die findings of scientific experiments.
o We would like, however, to add a further remark by way of warning. When our reader has finished reading this book he will in no way have increased his knowledge. This will not be entirely our fault, perhaps, but rather will be the price that must be paid for the method we have selected. When we turn inwards upon ourselves we turn aside from truth. When we carry out inner experiments, we inevitably contradict objective experiment. Again it must be repeated that in this book when we talk of our personal experiences we are demonstrating human errors. Our work is offered, then, as an example of that special psychoanalysis that we believe would form a useful basis for all objective studies.
• 1. Fire and Respect: The Prometheus Complex
• Fire and heat provide modes of explanation in the most varied domains, because they have been for us the occasion for unforgettable memories, for simple and decisive personal experiences. Fire is thus a privileged phenomenon which can explain anything. If all that changes slowly may be explained by life, all that changes quickly is explained by fire. Fire is the ultra-living element. It is intimate. It is gentleness and torture. It is cookery and it is apocalypse
• 18C Doctor’s page:
I mean by this fire noc a violent, tumultuous, irritating and unnatural heat which burns instead of cooking the bodily humors just as it does the foods; but rather that gentle, moderate, aromatic fire which is accompanied by a certain humidity having an affinity with that of blood and which penetrates the heterogeneous humors as well as the nutritious juices, separates them, wears them down, polishes the roughness and bitterness of their several parts and finally brings them to such a degree of gentleness and refinement that they are now adapted to our nature
In this page there is not a single argument, noc a single epithet, which can be granted an objective meaning. And yet how convincing it is! To me it seems to combine the persuasive power of the doctor and the insinuating power of the remedy. Just as Are is the most insinuating of medicaments, so in extolling its virtues the doctor is his most persuasive. In any case, I never reread this page—let him who can explain this invincible association— without remembering the grave and kindly doctor with the gold watch who used to come to my bedside when I was a child and who would calm my worried mother with one learned word. It would be a winter’s morning in our poor home. The fire would be shining in the hearth. They would give me syrup of Tolu. I can remember how I would lick the spoon. Where are they, those days filled with the warm smell of balsam and the hot aromas of the medicines?
• PSYCHOANALYSIS OF OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE: a question of finding how unconscious values affect the very basis of empirical and scientific knowledge. We must then show the mutual light which objective and social knowledge constantly sheds on subjective and personal knowledge, and vice versa. We must show in the scientific experiment traces of the experience of the child. Thus we shall be justified in speaking of an unconscious of the scientific mind—of the heterogeneous nature of certain concepts, and we shall see converging, in our study of any particular phenomenon, convictions that have been formed in the most varied fields.
one of the advantages of the psychoanalysis of objective knowledge that we are proposing to carry out seems to be that we are examining a zone that is less deep than that in which the primitive instincts function; and it is because this zone is intermediary that it has a determinative action on clear thought, on scientific thought.
• Social interdiction as first general knowledge of fire
The child wishes to do what his father does, but far away from his father’s presence, and so like a little Prometheus he steals some matches. He then heads for the fields where, in the hollow of a little valley, he and his companions build a secret fireplace that will keep them warm on the days when they decide to play truant from school. The city child has little acquaintance with the joys of the fire flaming up between three stones; he has not tasted the fried sloe nor the snail that has been placed all slimy on the fiery embers. He may very well escape the 'Prometheus complex whose action I have often experienced. Only this complex enables us to understand the interest that is always aroused by the rather trite legend of the father of Fire.
We propose, then, to place together under the name of the Prometheus complex all those tendencies which impel us to know as much as our fathers, more than our fathers, as much as our teachers, more than our teachers. Now it is by handling the object, it is by perfecting our objective knowledge, that we can best hope to prove decisively that we have attained the intellectual level that we have so admired in our parents and in our teachers. The acquiring of supremacy through the drive of more powerful instincts naturally will appeal to a much greater number of individuals, but minds o f a rarer stamp also must be examined by the psychologist. If pure intellectuality is exceptional, it is nonetheless very characteristic of a specifically human evolution. The Prometheus complex is the Oedipus complex of the life of the intellect.
• 2. Fire and Reverie; The Empedocles Complex
• Psychology has studied the pyromaniac, psychology of trauma from fires. These two poles are passed like torches, a contagion of lonely dreams
• Psychoanalysis has, for its part, studied dreams of fire.
• Since we are limiting ourselves to psychoanalyzing a psychic layer that is LESS DEEP, more intellectualized, we must replace the study of dreams by the study of reverie, and, more particularly, in this little book we must study the reverie before the fire.
• In our opinion, this REVERIE is entirely different from the dream by the very fact that it is always more or less centered upon one object. The dream proceeds on its way in linear fashion, forgetting its original path as it hastens along. The reverie works in a star pattern. It returns to its center to shoot out new beams.
The fire confined to the fireplace was no doubt for man the first object of reverie, the symbol of repose, the invitation to repose. One can hardly conceive of a philosophy of repose that would not include a reverie before a flaming log fire. Thus, in our opinion, to be deprived of a reverie before a burning fire is to lose the first use and the truly human use of fire.
A special kind of attention, rarely utilized for other contemplation. When near the fire, one must be seated; one must rest without sleeping; one must engage in reverie on a specific object.
• The conquest of the superfluous gives us a greater spiritual excitement than the conquest of the necessary. Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need (disputing utilitarian arguments for taming of fire)
• The reverie by the fireside has axes that are more philosophical.
• Empedocles Complex
Seen in work of George Sand. Traveler climbs mt Etna at night to see Sicily in sunrise, stops to sleep in Goat Grotto. Can’t sleep, dreams before his fire of logs, remains with elbow on knees. In fire he sees “reduced image” of eruption of Mt Etna
This is an axis of magnifying reverie–admiring a spectacle one has never seen!
Wishes he had the eyes of an ant to admire the burning log. Then thinks of moths, blind joy and love’s frenzy, hurling into fire on logs!
Love, death and fire are united at the same moment. Through its sacrifice in the heart of the flames, the mayfly gives us a lesson in eternity. This total death which leaves no trace is the guarantee that our whole person has departed for the beyond. To lose everything in order to gain everything.
Fire evoking volcano and funeral pyre.
Empedocles chooses a death which fuses him into the pure element of the Volcano.
Death in the flame is the least lonely of deaths. It is truly a cosmic death in which a whole universe is reduced to nothingness along with the thinker. The funeral pyre accom¬panies him in his passing.
• 3. Psychoanalysis and Prehistory: The Novalis Complex
• What psychoanalysis has not yet completely system¬atized—although the works of C. G. Jung have cast a bright fight upon this point—is the study of scientific explanations, of objective explanations, which purport to account for the dis¬coveries of prehistoric man. In this chapter we shall bring together and complete the observations of C. G. Jung by calling attention to the weakness of rational explanations.
• Scientific explanations must
Be appropriate for prehistoric discoveries
Must move beyond arid and cursory rationalism which claims to be profiting by recurring factual evidence but which is, however, quite unrelated to the psychological conditions of the primitive discoveries.
• How was fire tamed?
Not from mimicking lightning, as has been suggested. That phenomenon in its natural aspect has never been observed, and cannot be assumed to link to rubbing of things.
Shock, not rubbing, happens at that site.
• So the traditional rational, objective explanation of invention of fire is unsatisfying.
• What is a satisfying psychological explanation?
Rubbing as highly sexualized experience. The love act is the first scientific hypothesis about the objective reproduction of fire.
• The generally accepted method of throwing light upon the psychology of prehistoric man is to study still existing primitive peoples. But for a psychoanalysis of objective knowledge there are other instances of primitiveness which seem to us to be ultimately more pertinent. NOT ABOUT CASE STUDIES OF THEN-BODIES BUT STUDIES OF PRIMITIVENESS IN OURS.
• PSYCHOLOGY OF PRIMITIVENESS
• The warm sense of well-being arising from physical love must have been transferred into many primitive experiences. To set fire to the stick by sliding it up and down in the groove in the piece of dry wood takes time and patience. But this work must have been very agreeable to an individual whose reverie was wholly sexual. It was perhaps while engaged in this gentle task that man learned to sing. In any case it is an obviously rhythmic kind of task, a task which answers to the rhythm of the worker, which brings him lovely, multiple reso¬ nances: the arm that rubs, the pieces o f wood that strike together, the voice that sings, all are united in the same harmony and the same rhythm ic increase in energy; everything converges on to the one hope, on to an objective whose value is known.
• The eurhythmy of an active rubbing motion, on condition that it be sufficiently gentle and prolonged, brings about a euphoria.
• We propose to seek out systematically the component elements of the Libido in all primitive activities. Indeed, it is not only in art that the Libido is sublimated. It is the source of all the works of homo faber.
• Someone undoubtedly stated it very well when he defined man as: a hand and a language. But the useful gestures must not hide the agreeable gestures. The hand is the organ that caresses, just as the voice is the organ that sings. Primitively, caress and work must have been associated.
• [Survey of myths from around the world; the passing over from metaphor to reality]
• Novalis complex
All of Novalis’ poetry could receive a new interpretation, if we would apply to it the psychoanalysis of fire. This poetry is an attempt to re-live primitivity.
• 4. Sexualized Fire
• The conquest of fire was originally a sexual “conquest”
• There is a necessity for a psychoanalysis of objective knowledge.
• So much of fire as conceptualized is wrong because: as error becomes cloaked by the unconscious, as it loses its precise outline, it be¬ comes more acceptable. It would require only one further step in this direction to attain the gentle safety of philosophical meta¬phors.
• The unconscious marries a touch of mystery and the force of the primitive image, heavily charged primitive fallacies and lovers’ dreams.
• All philosophy (and alchemy and science) here is penetrated by an immense sexual reverie…a reverie of power. This sexual reverie is a fireside reverie. Far from being a description of the objective phenomena, it is an attempt to inscribe human love at the heart of things.
• The persistence of obscure images of fire (opening of bodies, possession of bodies from within, total possession, masculine and feminine) in areas in which direct symbolization remains confused, proves the sexual origin of the ideas about fire.
• Sexualized fire is preeminently the connecting link for all symbols. It unites matter and spirit, vice and virtue. It idealizes materialistic knowledge; it materializes idealistic knowledge. It is the principle of an essential ambiguity which is not without charm, but which must be continually recognized and psycho¬-analyzed in order that we may criticize both the materialists and the idealists: “ I am manipulating,” says the Alchemist. “ No, you are dreaming.”
• Homo faber is the man of surfaces, his mind is fixed on a few familiar objects, on a few crude geometric forms. For him the sphere has no center, it is simply the objective counterpart of the rounding gesture he makes with his cupped hands. On the other hand the dreaming man seated before his fireplace is the man concerned with inner depths, a man in the process of development.
• To this phenomenon through fire, to this most noticeable of all phenomena, which is marked, however, in the depths of the substance, a name must be given: the first phenomenon which merited man’s attention was the pyromenon or product of fire. We shall now see how this fire product, which was so intimately understood by prehistoric man, has for centuries foiled attempts at explanation on the part of scientists.
• 5. The Chemistry of Fire: History of a False Problem
• In our opinion this problem is really not one of scientific history, for the scientific part of the problem is falsified by the importation of the values whose action we have demonstrated in the preceding chapters. As a result, we really have to deal only with the history of the confusions that have been accumulated in the field of science by intuitions about fire. These intuitions are epistemological obstacles which are all the more difficult to overcome since they are psychologically clearer.
• In perhaps a slightly roundabout way we are still dealing, then, with a psychoanalysis which is really continuous in spite of the difference in viewpoint. Instead of turning to the poet and the dreamer, this psychoanalysis pays particular attention to the chemists and the biologists of past centuries, But
January 21, 2023
"The real basis of respect for the flame is this: if a child brings his hand closer to the fire, his father lowers the ruler on his fingers. The fire hits before it even burns. (..) Therefore, fire is first a subject of general prohibition; the following conclusion follows from this: Social prohibition is our first general knowledge about fire. (..) Away from his father, he wants to worship like his father, he steals matches like a little Prometheus.”
A burning hand is an image of fire, before it actually burns your hand. Fire, before being a phenomenon that turns our dreams into nightmares, is the main element of the dream we live while awake. Bachelard, realizing this, became one of those who walked into the fire. In the end, we have a tremendous book of thoughts born from the ashes.
In this book, Bachelard examined what the image of fire means to a person in both a philosophical and psychological sense, and what kind of thought and mood fire awakens in a person. In this book, which has been written in a very postmodernist line, the sanctity of fire according to the taboos of primitive tribes, the fear and evil image in today's beliefs have been touched upon, and the reflections of such an effective image in human psychology at the point of belief have been traced. I can say that he has achieved very successful anecdotes. I would say that the fact that he acted based on his own subjective assessments also brought him closer to objectivity.
The basis of the book is based on the myth of Prometheus. Thanks to this, it has formed a person's fear, love and reservations about fire by bringing psychological explanations. Since fire is both desired and feared by man, Bachelard associates it with man; with concepts such as heat, fire, temperature, he brings psychological explanations about quite a lot of things about man (such as sexuality, faith, living).
One of the most interesting points of the book is Bachelard's acceptance of fire as a social being rather than a natural one. The fact that fire has a social value as an image and symbol shows that it stems from a taught respect. Just like the incident in the beginning quote. For this reason, fire is a prohibition for man. The fact that the phenomenon of hell is adorned with fire is also used by religions to make the rules accepted through fear.
Why has Bachelard, who has put forward a very successful book and theory, been left in the background compared to other French thinkers? I haven't been able to solve this part. But I think it should definitely be read.
A burning hand is an image of fire, before it actually burns your hand. Fire, before being a phenomenon that turns our dreams into nightmares, is the main element of the dream we live while awake. Bachelard, realizing this, became one of those who walked into the fire. In the end, we have a tremendous book of thoughts born from the ashes.
In this book, Bachelard examined what the image of fire means to a person in both a philosophical and psychological sense, and what kind of thought and mood fire awakens in a person. In this book, which has been written in a very postmodernist line, the sanctity of fire according to the taboos of primitive tribes, the fear and evil image in today's beliefs have been touched upon, and the reflections of such an effective image in human psychology at the point of belief have been traced. I can say that he has achieved very successful anecdotes. I would say that the fact that he acted based on his own subjective assessments also brought him closer to objectivity.
The basis of the book is based on the myth of Prometheus. Thanks to this, it has formed a person's fear, love and reservations about fire by bringing psychological explanations. Since fire is both desired and feared by man, Bachelard associates it with man; with concepts such as heat, fire, temperature, he brings psychological explanations about quite a lot of things about man (such as sexuality, faith, living).
One of the most interesting points of the book is Bachelard's acceptance of fire as a social being rather than a natural one. The fact that fire has a social value as an image and symbol shows that it stems from a taught respect. Just like the incident in the beginning quote. For this reason, fire is a prohibition for man. The fact that the phenomenon of hell is adorned with fire is also used by religions to make the rules accepted through fear.
Why has Bachelard, who has put forward a very successful book and theory, been left in the background compared to other French thinkers? I haven't been able to solve this part. But I think it should definitely be read.
August 4, 2018
النار بفكر وشكل آخر ، كفلسفة وإسطورة وعلم نفس ، كخُرفات وحلم يقضة و محسوسات ، أعتقد أن الترجمة التي لدي من قبل زينب الخضيري لم تكن موفقة كثيراً أو أن الكتاب غير مترابط بشكل دقيق في طرحه وأفكاره ، وكما قال الكاتب نفسه" هذا الكتاب لن يُضيف للقارئ شيئاً يُذكر كمعرفة ! "
لكنهُ رُبما جعلنا نرى النار ونُدركها بتصور وفكر آخر غريب عنا رُبما كان مُبرراً في عصره وزمنه أكثر من الآن .،
لكنهُ رُبما جعلنا نرى النار ونُدركها بتصور وفكر آخر غريب عنا رُبما كان مُبرراً في عصره وزمنه أكثر من الآن .،
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September 30, 2024Quem sou eu para dar estrelas para o Bachelard, não? Mas uma delícia de livro, o deboche e a autoironia num texto filosófico sempre me pegam muito.
Mas um na sequência dos ensaios sobre devaneios. Maravilhoso.
Mas um na sequência dos ensaios sobre devaneios. Maravilhoso.
April 10, 2020
Bachelard nous ouvre les yeux sur le symbolisme, archaique, du feu. Ou pourquoi ce feu qui crépite réveille en nous mélancolie et introspection!
November 28, 2024
Chémia snenia. So analytical, So dreamy, So fire (haha).
April 22, 2020
Pas sûr que c’était le bon choix pour entrer dans l’univers de Gaston Bachelard...!
February 17, 2025
“إذا كان كل ما يتغير بطيئًا تفسره الحياة، فإن كل ما يتغير سريعًا تفسره النار فالنار هي الحي الأعلى وهي داخلية وخارجية تحيا في قلوبنا وتحيا في السماء تصّاعد من أعماق الجوهر وتتبدى لنا حُبًا ثم تعود فتهبط إلى قلب المادة وتختفي كامنًة منطوية، كالحقد والإنتقام”.
November 11, 2013
How does one rectify the burning fires of hell and the consuming purification of the Holy Spirit? This book places one in an arena where dueling thoughts about our understanding, contextual precepts and truths, and opined beliefs are interrogated. The nature of language, an art in and of itself is deftly handled by Bachelard, who exploits the inherent weakness of poetry when trying to describe any event. The metamorphic meaning of words is rooted in the nature of our education. We seek to find greater clarity and clearer understanding by elaboration and eradication. The duality of our nature is also espoused in other phenomena. Water is essential for life, but in large quantities it can be dangerous and deadly. The chapter regarding purification and distillation is brilliant.
February 4, 2013
''La conquête du superflu donne une excitation spirituelle plus grande que la conquête du nécessaire. L'homme est une création du désir, non pas une création du besoin.'' (Gaston Bachelard dans ''La psychanalise du feu'' p. 38)
C'est l'un des fragments dans ce livre que j'ai aimé le plus, qui renferme l'une des vérités les plus contéstées a présent, mais qui exprime à la fois le mieux l'essence du temps que nous vivons, celui de l'être contrôlé ou pas par l'instinct consumériste...
C'est l'un des fragments dans ce livre que j'ai aimé le plus, qui renferme l'une des vérités les plus contéstées a présent, mais qui exprime à la fois le mieux l'essence du temps que nous vivons, celui de l'être contrôlé ou pas par l'instinct consumériste...
January 6, 2022
لدي مشاعر مختلطة تجاه الكتاب، فباشلار حلّل ظاهرة النار في العقل الانساني، ولم ينتهي بخلاصة أو نتائج في بحثه، بل هو نفسه قال في بداية الكتاب ان هذا الكتاب لن يزيد على معارفك العلمية بعد الانتهاء من قراءته.
وربما كان هذا العلم، اي التحليل النفسي علما زائفا، ومرّ عليه الزمن، لكن يمكن إعتبار هذا البحث في معنى النار في الاعتقادات الإنسانية مبحثاً مثيراً، فهو يمكن ان يشكل بحث أنثربولوجي، أو أدبي أو لغوي وفلسفي أكثر منه علماً
وربما كان هذا العلم، اي التحليل النفسي علما زائفا، ومرّ عليه الزمن، لكن يمكن إعتبار هذا البحث في معنى النار في الاعتقادات الإنسانية مبحثاً مثيراً، فهو يمكن ان يشكل بحث أنثربولوجي، أو أدبي أو لغوي وفلسفي أكثر منه علماً
April 13, 2011
Bachelard changed my outlook on everything related to art. Highly recommended.
March 8, 2015
not freud sitting down with heraclitus, sadly. just what is in the id of the polemos, anyways?
June 9, 2025
يقول الكاتب 'هذا الكتاب لن يضيف للقارئ شيئا يذكر كمعرفة'
وقد صدق، فأنا لم أفهم شيئا أكثر من ربط النار بالجنس!
قرأته ضمن تحدي أبجد للقراءة ٢٠٢٤
محمد متولي
وقد صدق، فأنا لم أفهم شيئا أكثر من ربط النار بالجنس!
قرأته ضمن تحدي أبجد للقراءة ٢٠٢٤
محمد متولي
September 27, 2022
Haha, this is so great. The (egotistical) reason I love Gaston Bachelard is he's interested in a number of the same things I'm interested in and am working out in my Safe Little World projects and the Safe Little World Monographs. (Though these things are parsed through a much more formidable mind in his case.)
His book The Poetics of Space touches on many of the same elements that fascinate me in my Safe Little World work; he has a book called Air and Dreams, which I haven't read yet but appears to touch on some of the same themes as my Pride & Refuse project; and this one The Psychoanalysis of Fire, which investigates some of the same themes and phenomena as my The Ultimate Burn.
With many reverberations, the realm of spirituality is usually more implicit than explicit in Bachelard's work. But the transcendent always threatens to break through. (For a more explicit treatment, I have other writers, like the great 'reverist' John O'Donohue.)
Coming to The Psychoanalysis of Fire (which significantly pre-dates The Poetics of Space, which I had already read) at first I assumed I was reading something slightly tongue in cheek (he is a witty writer) or perhaps satirical. But it transpires that this is a sincere psychoanalysis. His concern, as a scientist, was to identify the way in which 'reveries' can cloud 'objective knowledge'. In this case, a person's feelings about fire (informed by personal experience and more importantly inheriting psychical data from the pre-scientific minds of our forebears) leading them to make all sorts of outlandish declarations in the scientific realm.
But of course, the reveries are actually more fascinating, in the final analysis (excuse the pun), than 'pure' scientific observation. Which is borne out by the trajectory of Bachelard's intellectual career. He carries on being interested in epistemology and phenomenology, but by the time he writes The Poetics of Space, almost 20 years later, he is writing almost entirely about reveries and not much about scientific observation at all. He is already beginning to make this move in the final chapter and conclusion of The Psychoanalysis of Fire, and given the poeticism and the eventual esteem for the poet that are evident in this book, I would deem that evolution in his writing a triumph.
The main thing for Bachelard is that we know, that we are aware, of our tendencies and then, rather than unknowingly drowning in what is unacknowledged, move through things - reverie and all - with deliberate intentionality and joy. Or something like that. "The fire which was consuming us suddenly enlightens us. The haphazard passion becomes the deliberate passion. Love becomes family; fire becomes hearth and home." (p101)
Bachelard's primary focus in The Psychoanalysis of Fire is scientific thinkers. He deliberately steers away from theological aspects, and says so. But that whets the appetite, and one wonders what he would have had to say about the mystics - those great proponents and poets of the metaphorical depth characteristics of fire.
An unnuanced psychoanalytical reading of their work would no doubt arrive at a repressed, sublimated or transferred sexual desire. And perhaps in some cases not unreasonably. (Though in truth, it would be just as easy to read sexual desire as sublimated desire for the divine, as the other way around.) But that's the limit of psychoanalysis (which sometimes seems to have the same sensibility as schoolboy tittering... haha I said 'tittering'). It fails to go to another potential level of depth: the fire and desire of and for the divine behind it all.
The thing is though (and psychoanalyse this if you wish), Bachelard's writing is generative. He doesn't need to mention the mystics, or whatever else, to spark the reader's own reveries and journeys. He was a unique thinker and I'm glad to have found him.
"We do not write poetry if we are confined to a single note, for the single note has no poetic property. If we are unable immediately to attain an ordered multiplicity, we can always resort to dialectics as to a clang that will awaken our dormant resonances."
His book The Poetics of Space touches on many of the same elements that fascinate me in my Safe Little World work; he has a book called Air and Dreams, which I haven't read yet but appears to touch on some of the same themes as my Pride & Refuse project; and this one The Psychoanalysis of Fire, which investigates some of the same themes and phenomena as my The Ultimate Burn.
With many reverberations, the realm of spirituality is usually more implicit than explicit in Bachelard's work. But the transcendent always threatens to break through. (For a more explicit treatment, I have other writers, like the great 'reverist' John O'Donohue.)
Coming to The Psychoanalysis of Fire (which significantly pre-dates The Poetics of Space, which I had already read) at first I assumed I was reading something slightly tongue in cheek (he is a witty writer) or perhaps satirical. But it transpires that this is a sincere psychoanalysis. His concern, as a scientist, was to identify the way in which 'reveries' can cloud 'objective knowledge'. In this case, a person's feelings about fire (informed by personal experience and more importantly inheriting psychical data from the pre-scientific minds of our forebears) leading them to make all sorts of outlandish declarations in the scientific realm.
But of course, the reveries are actually more fascinating, in the final analysis (excuse the pun), than 'pure' scientific observation. Which is borne out by the trajectory of Bachelard's intellectual career. He carries on being interested in epistemology and phenomenology, but by the time he writes The Poetics of Space, almost 20 years later, he is writing almost entirely about reveries and not much about scientific observation at all. He is already beginning to make this move in the final chapter and conclusion of The Psychoanalysis of Fire, and given the poeticism and the eventual esteem for the poet that are evident in this book, I would deem that evolution in his writing a triumph.
The main thing for Bachelard is that we know, that we are aware, of our tendencies and then, rather than unknowingly drowning in what is unacknowledged, move through things - reverie and all - with deliberate intentionality and joy. Or something like that. "The fire which was consuming us suddenly enlightens us. The haphazard passion becomes the deliberate passion. Love becomes family; fire becomes hearth and home." (p101)
Bachelard's primary focus in The Psychoanalysis of Fire is scientific thinkers. He deliberately steers away from theological aspects, and says so. But that whets the appetite, and one wonders what he would have had to say about the mystics - those great proponents and poets of the metaphorical depth characteristics of fire.
An unnuanced psychoanalytical reading of their work would no doubt arrive at a repressed, sublimated or transferred sexual desire. And perhaps in some cases not unreasonably. (Though in truth, it would be just as easy to read sexual desire as sublimated desire for the divine, as the other way around.) But that's the limit of psychoanalysis (which sometimes seems to have the same sensibility as schoolboy tittering... haha I said 'tittering'). It fails to go to another potential level of depth: the fire and desire of and for the divine behind it all.
The thing is though (and psychoanalyse this if you wish), Bachelard's writing is generative. He doesn't need to mention the mystics, or whatever else, to spark the reader's own reveries and journeys. He was a unique thinker and I'm glad to have found him.
"We do not write poetry if we are confined to a single note, for the single note has no poetic property. If we are unable immediately to attain an ordered multiplicity, we can always resort to dialectics as to a clang that will awaken our dormant resonances."
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