Page 48 - Hrobat Virloget, Katja, et al., eds. (2015). Stone narratives: heritage, mobility, performance. University of Primorska Press, Koper.
P. 48
stone narratives
The theme of stones (and/or metals) growing in the earth, which we explore in this
chapter, was nevertheless dealt with in the mentioned Bachelard’s book. For our intent,
a combination of a historical epistemologist (i.e., the philosopher of science in a distinct
French tradition which envisages sciences from the historical perspective and of which Ba-
chelard is a pioneer) and a subtle thinker of elemental substances as well as an observer
of the humans imagining the matter, whom Bachelard impersonates, is of particular rele-
vance. While Bachelard granted poets the privilege of possessing an especially creative im-
agination, as most of them are free of external constraints, he subsequently subjected poet-
ry to the same questioning as scientific texts. He did not separate them from one another
when he wanted to see how they related to the developments of scientific discourse (or to
the »progress of science«, to put it simply).2 When dealing with the belief in the fecundity
of mines, for instance, he maintained that romantic poets (despite their anti-scientific atti-
tudes, one could add) were already »too timid« to advocate extreme claims such as the one
that mines were actually a kind of a buried tree with roots, the stem, boughs, branches and
leaves. For this reason (also called germinative power), metals were considered living beings,
in the same way as plants and animals are (Bachelard, 1948, pp. 242–246). In the romantic
period, says Bachelard, as a consequence of the progressing scientific spirit, such cosmic im-
ages were already dying or decaying. Some romantics would turn them into innocent met-
aphors, such as the poet Florian, who sang in his Occitanie that the fertile Occitanian soil
produced grapevines and olive trees, and added: Marble, turquoise and the gold are all prod-
ucts of your fertile soil (1948, p. 246). We should bear in mind that before growing became a
sheer metaphor, there was a belief that the metals and stones literally grew in the earth (soil)
– in the same way as plants do.
Bachelard has often been celebrated for introducing the vision of scientific process
as discontinuous – a view shared by the totality of the French epistemology of the previ-
ous century, which also found its way into poststructuralist philosophy. Yet seeing the sci-
entific development as consisting of discontinuous developments (the view even more in-
fluentially pronounced in Georges Canguilhem) does not imply denying that science is
embedded in a culture and that scientists are culturally conditioned. For Bachelard (or
Canguilhem), epistemological break (Bachelard actually used the term rupture) does not
mean that Isaac Newton, when producing such a break, made a clear break with all his ear-
lier cultural and religious beliefs. Newton was a deeply religious person, attracted to the
literal, therefore ‘fundamentalist’ interpretation of the Bible. He was, especially in the be-
ginning of his scientific career, also very much absorbed in research in alchemy (or ‘chymis-
try’)3 As a ‘chymist’, Newton was particularly preoccupied with the theory of mineral and
metallic generation. His theory, as well as its earlier formulations (by Michael Sendivogi-
us, Johann Grasseus and others), assumed that metals and minerals grow in the earth, but
placed this belief in a wider and conceptually much more elaborated context. The growth of
2 Consistent with this, Bachelard also contributed to democratizing the access to poetry by denying the pertinence
of the distinction between ‘first class’ and ‘second class’ poets. Both were equally prone to bring forward new
poetic images. This methodological point was obviously inaccessible to the surrealist poet René Char when he
quipped that he didn’t want to read a man who quoted so many bad poets (Pouliquen, 2004, p. 122).
3 Alchemy was not clearly separated from chemistry in his time and recent research has also shown that,
considered in its field, alchemy was much more coherent and based in greater extent on empirical evidence than
it was previously believed.
46
The theme of stones (and/or metals) growing in the earth, which we explore in this
chapter, was nevertheless dealt with in the mentioned Bachelard’s book. For our intent,
a combination of a historical epistemologist (i.e., the philosopher of science in a distinct
French tradition which envisages sciences from the historical perspective and of which Ba-
chelard is a pioneer) and a subtle thinker of elemental substances as well as an observer
of the humans imagining the matter, whom Bachelard impersonates, is of particular rele-
vance. While Bachelard granted poets the privilege of possessing an especially creative im-
agination, as most of them are free of external constraints, he subsequently subjected poet-
ry to the same questioning as scientific texts. He did not separate them from one another
when he wanted to see how they related to the developments of scientific discourse (or to
the »progress of science«, to put it simply).2 When dealing with the belief in the fecundity
of mines, for instance, he maintained that romantic poets (despite their anti-scientific atti-
tudes, one could add) were already »too timid« to advocate extreme claims such as the one
that mines were actually a kind of a buried tree with roots, the stem, boughs, branches and
leaves. For this reason (also called germinative power), metals were considered living beings,
in the same way as plants and animals are (Bachelard, 1948, pp. 242–246). In the romantic
period, says Bachelard, as a consequence of the progressing scientific spirit, such cosmic im-
ages were already dying or decaying. Some romantics would turn them into innocent met-
aphors, such as the poet Florian, who sang in his Occitanie that the fertile Occitanian soil
produced grapevines and olive trees, and added: Marble, turquoise and the gold are all prod-
ucts of your fertile soil (1948, p. 246). We should bear in mind that before growing became a
sheer metaphor, there was a belief that the metals and stones literally grew in the earth (soil)
– in the same way as plants do.
Bachelard has often been celebrated for introducing the vision of scientific process
as discontinuous – a view shared by the totality of the French epistemology of the previ-
ous century, which also found its way into poststructuralist philosophy. Yet seeing the sci-
entific development as consisting of discontinuous developments (the view even more in-
fluentially pronounced in Georges Canguilhem) does not imply denying that science is
embedded in a culture and that scientists are culturally conditioned. For Bachelard (or
Canguilhem), epistemological break (Bachelard actually used the term rupture) does not
mean that Isaac Newton, when producing such a break, made a clear break with all his ear-
lier cultural and religious beliefs. Newton was a deeply religious person, attracted to the
literal, therefore ‘fundamentalist’ interpretation of the Bible. He was, especially in the be-
ginning of his scientific career, also very much absorbed in research in alchemy (or ‘chymis-
try’)3 As a ‘chymist’, Newton was particularly preoccupied with the theory of mineral and
metallic generation. His theory, as well as its earlier formulations (by Michael Sendivogi-
us, Johann Grasseus and others), assumed that metals and minerals grow in the earth, but
placed this belief in a wider and conceptually much more elaborated context. The growth of
2 Consistent with this, Bachelard also contributed to democratizing the access to poetry by denying the pertinence
of the distinction between ‘first class’ and ‘second class’ poets. Both were equally prone to bring forward new
poetic images. This methodological point was obviously inaccessible to the surrealist poet René Char when he
quipped that he didn’t want to read a man who quoted so many bad poets (Pouliquen, 2004, p. 122).
3 Alchemy was not clearly separated from chemistry in his time and recent research has also shown that,
considered in its field, alchemy was much more coherent and based in greater extent on empirical evidence than
it was previously believed.
46
