July,16th,2018

Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Department of Philosophy
PHILOSOPHICAL COMMENT
Text to comment:

«The idea of leaving from scratch to found and increase his good can not come
only in cultures of simple juxtaposition where a known fact is
immediately a wealth. But before the mystery of the real, the soul does not
can be done, by decree, ingenuous. It is impossible to make a single
clean slate of the usual knowledge. In the face of reality, what we believe
to know clearly what is wrong. When he shows up
scientific culture, the mind is never young. He is very old,
for he is the age of his prejudices. To access science is, spiritually
to rejuvenate is to accept a sudden mutation that must contradict a
past. Science, in its need of completion as in its
principle, is absolutely opposed to opinion. If it happens to him, on one point
particular, to legitimize public opinion, is for reasons other than those
who base the opinion; so that opinion is always wrong in law.
The opinion thinks badly; she does not think: she translates needs into
knowledge. In designating the objects by their utility, it is forbidden to
to know them. We can not base anything on opinion: we must first
destroy. She is the first obstacle to overcome. It would not be enough, by
example, to rectify it on particular points, by maintaining, as
a sort of provisional morality, a temporary vulgar knowledge.
The scientific spirit forbids us to have an opinion on questions
that we do not understand, on issues we do not know
formulate clearly. Above all, you have to know how to pose problems. And
whatever you say, in the scientific life, the problems do not arise
themselves. It is precisely this sense of the problem that gives the mark
true scientific spirit. For a scientific mind, any
knowledge is an answer to a question. If there were no questions,
there can not be scientific knowledge. Nothing goes without saying. Nothing is
given. Everything is built. "

Gaston Bachelard, The formation of the scientific spirit, Paris, Bookstore

Philosophical Vrin, 1999 (1st edition: 1938), excerpt from chapter 1
 Comment of Mamadou BA,
The text submitted for our reflection is an excerpt from
Bachelard entitled "The Formation of the Scientific Mind". In this
book, it shows how the scientific mind is formed, how
the mind goes to science. Based on the history of science, he
identifies what can be obstacles to scientific knowledge.
In this excerpt, the author evokes the attitudes that must be the one who wants
to train in science. What attitude must one have who wants to acquire the
scientific knowledge? For the author, whoever wants to access the
scientific knowledge must first approach it with a young spirit
that is to say, to get rid of all prejudices. Then he must destroy his
opinions, and finally learn to ask problems, to ask questions.
Accept that what we claim to know is called into question,
contradicted, such is the idea that the author highlights in this
first part of the text. In cultures where the accumulation of facts is
assimilated to knowledge, it is normal that "the idea of starting from
zero to found and increase his good, "his knowledge, to approach
of scientific knowledge. In these cultures, raw knowledge
facts is considered an acquisition of knowledge. Facts
are placed next to each other without any attempt to understand them.
This way of thinking knowledge is therefore far from knowledge scientist. In this case, it is
obvious that one must consider one's prejudices
as nonexistent.
But the author emphasizes that this attitude of leaving or starting from
zero is not an easy attitude to adopt because before the fact or the real, it
is not obvious that one accepts to be totally naive: "It is then
it is impossible to make a simple sweep of the usual knowledge.
Because the soul that presents itself to the scientific culture is already filled
prejudices, it is never neutral. "She is the age of her prejudices" as
says the author. However, to acquire science, the spirit must be
rejuvenated. That is, the mind must get rid of what would prevent it
to access scientific knowledge. Very often we find by
example that the child is more willing to learn than the adult because he has
not a lot of knowledge and prejudices to his credit. He has pure spirit
and therefore has no obstacle to learn. However, the adult often presents
with prejudices, resistances. To access science, you have to
accept that his prior knowledge is jostled, contradicted
and questioned. Prejudice is not the only obstacle to
science, the author, after having shown their nuisance, proceeds to the
demonstration of another obstacle no less important.
In the second part, the author shows that science is opposed to
opinion. Plato gives us this definition of opinion: "something
intermediary between ignorance and knowledge. "This is to say that the opinion
is a fuzzy, confused, imprecise and unfounded knowledge
rational. Opinion is a subjective, incomplete and partial idea.
Opinion is only a point of view. She is often influenced by the environment and personal
motivations. Indeed, believe and know
are not the same thing. To believe is to accept or to admit an idea
without being able to demonstrate it in a convincing way. We have not
not necessarily need to understand before believing. Now, science
is not the domain of belief, but of knowledge. Knowledge assumes a
going beyond appearance to access true knowledge, to
scientific knowledge. Opinion has no place when it comes to
train the mind to science.
Indeed, for it to be known, it is necessary necessarily the activity of
intelligence. The real must be confronted with the operation of the mind. The
science is not a world of naivety, of subjectivity, but of
rationality, objectivity. However, the opinion is not objective, it is a
way of thinking, of conceiving who is conveyed. That's why the author
says: "The opinion thinks badly, it does not think: it reflects needs in
knowledge. Whoever wants to access scientific knowledge,
must begin by destroying the opinion because it has nothing
constitutes a major obstacle to the emergence and growth of science.
The scientific idea is a reasoned, continuous construction based on
on the logical and mathematical demonstration, either on observation and
experimentation.
For example, public opinion admits that if an individual does
diarrhea and wasting, he is HIV-positive, while the screening test may
prove otherwise. The opinion forgets or does not know that these symptoms
can also be linked to many other diseases. The opinion is
therefore misleading and must be destroyed. It is not a question of correcting it or
rethink. It must be demolished, as Descartes wanted. Any building of which
the foundations do not hold must be demolished to build again on the solid. We must drive
out of our mind the concepts of life
common, spontaneous, unconscious psychological projections of the
do our habits. The scientist must be firm towards himself.
Nothing should be taken for granted without going through the sieve of the
reasoning and objectivity. The opinion and prejudices once demolished,
Bachelard shows that it is not enough just to remove them for
to achieve true knowledge, but now we have to look for
means to achieve this end.
Knowing how to pose problems is the bedrock of knowledge
scientist. This is what the author highlights in the third part of
text. But the problems, he says, do not arise of themselves. By
observation for example, questions arise and trigger the
Scientific Research. We know that philosophy is born from
questions. The concern to know the why and the how of things
and events is what leads to true knowledge. All the
scientific disciplines were born from this concern to understand the
things. "All knowledge is an answer to a question," said
the author. And besides, scientific knowledge is not acquired a
once for all. Science evolves and improves with questions
aroused by controversial facts.
At Bachelard, the problem does not arise by chance, it is
built. To pose a problem supposes an intellectual step and
methodical, which is why the author says "it is necessary to know how to pose
problems. "Indeed, the problem often stems from a controversial fact
found. The way the problem is posed, gives the orientation to the study we want to
perform. Define a research question is to choose what one wants to study is to trace one's
path of knowledge.
The position of the problem is very fundamental in any search
scientist for the acquisition of knowledge. And throughout the
work of intelligence, the questions allow the scientist to
look for. By searching, if he finds objective answers to his
interrogations, it results in knowledge that is not the result of
chance, but the work of intelligence. Since common sense, reason, is
the most widely shared thing in the world, as Descartes teaches us, the
knowledge acquired through the understanding will be shared by all
those who follow this path of understanding. Even though this
knowledge is challenged after, it is the fruit of construction
spirit.
Acquiring the scientific spirit comes from a rigorous approach of
the mind is the fact of an apprenticeship. Nobody is formed of one
blow to the scientific spirit. Scientific knowledge requires the one who
wants to acquire a certain attitude that can be described as attitude
scientist. This is what the author discusses in this text. In the
first and second part of the text he showed how prejudice and
opinion can be obstacles to scientific culture. approach science requires that one is
stripped of one's prejudices because it is in approaching science with a humble and open
mind that one can acquire true knowledge successfully. You have to be open to
discover,humble in order to question his prejudices. As for opinion, the author believes that
it must be simply destroyed because nothing can be build on it. In the last part of the text,
the author stresses the importance of problems, questions in training and evolution of
science. Scientific knowledge is built from questions and improves through them. In short,
in this text,Bachelard notes the attitude that one must have in order to achieve scientific
knowledge. Rejecting prejudices and opinions on the one hand and learn to ask questions
on the other hand.

Mamadou BA,Departement of Philosophy