Historical Rational Materialism: Methodological Reveries From Bachelard

Abstract

This paper is about the historical appropriation of epistemological values. Bachelard is a pioneer explored the march of historical epistemology in a series of his works. He presupposes that historical epistemology will culminate at the end of its history, as Marx too had imagined. Much before the rise of post-structuralism and post-humanism Bachelard traced how the rise of new science, scientific imagination could become free from human sentimentalities as humanity could extend their understanding using technological apparatuses. In line with Bachelard, I explore the march human imagination in its semantic ecology of reveries, rhetoric and interpretation and its relevance to evolutionary ascendance of epistemological values.

Keywords: Gaston Bachelard, Phenomeno-Technique, Imagination, Reverie, Rhetoric, Epistemological Obstacles, Interpretation, Epistemological Value