Name: Gaston Bachelard's Non-Kantian Philosophy of Science in the Philosophy of No
Start: 2026-07-09T12:00:00+1200
End: 2026-07-09T12:55:00+1200

Gaston Bachelard's Non-Kantian Philosophy of Science in the Philosophy of No

Thursday July 9, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST

MSB1.02

Gaston Bachelard has received increasing interest in analytic philosophy (Massimiliano Simons and Matteo Vagelli, 2021; Brenner, 2015; Chimisso, 2024), yet it remains controversial whether Bachelard simply develops the neo-Kantian philosophy of science (Tiles, 1984; Guo, 2019; Panero, 2021) or breaks with this tradition to establish a novel approach (Souto, 2022). In this paper, I argue, through a reading of The Philosophy of No (1940), that Bachelard’s philosophy of science is best understood as a movement away from Léon Brunschvicg’s neo-Kantian critical idealism towards a phenomenological account of science inspired by Edmund Husserl. First, I contrast Brunschvicg’s and Husserl’s divergent modifications of Kantian doctrines, principally regarding the cognitive capacity to grasp noumena. Second, I trace in The Philosophy of No how Bachelard inherits Brunschvicg’s neo-Kantian concerns for the autonomy, progress, and demystifying role of science while adapting these commitments into a variation of Husserl’s metaphysics of history. With this background in mind, I argue that Bachelard’s philosophy of science constitutes a pedagogical doctrine primarily aimed at transforming those initiated in Kantian doctrine into practitioners of a phenomenology of science.

Speakers

Jacob Ritz

University of Queensland

Jacob Ritz is a casual academic in German and mathematics and a PhD student at the University of Queensland, where he studied German, French, and pure mathematics. His current research interests lie in nineteenth- and twentieth-century German and French metaphysics, particularly at... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST
MSB1.02

Philosophy of Science, Remote

AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

Jacob Ritz

Attendees (6)

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AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

Jacob Ritz

Attendees (6)

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