METAPHYSICS IN BACHELARD,GASTON REVERIE

This paper aims to trace the evolution of Bachelard's thought as he gr opes toward a concrete formulation of a philosophy of the imagination. Reverie, the creative daydream, occupies the central position in Bach elard's emerging metaphysic, which becomes increasingly ''phenomenolog ical'' in a manner reminiscent of Husserl. This means that although Ba chelard does not use Husserlian terms, he appropriates the following f eatures of(Husserlian) phenomenology: 1. a desire to ''embracket'' the initial (rationalistic) impulse; and 2. an aspiration to apprehend in its entirety, the creative epiphany of an image. Ultimately, this pap er aims to show that there is a sense in which Bachelard's metaphysica l concerns in his poetics are an outgrowth of (rather than radical bre ak from) his earlier scientific and epistemological concerns. What res ults in reverie is an aesthetic intentionality providing a metaphysic of the imagination: the aesthetic object, such as fire or water, is an object only insofar as it enables/calls forth a subject to enter into a receptive, self-aware and cosmic state of being; subject-ness and o bjectness are intimately and archetypally intertwined. Bachelard's ''n ew poetics'' results from his transplantation/cross-fertilization of t he general epistemology of the ''new scientific spirit'' on to/across his aesthetics.