ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some salient aspects of twentieth-century literary criticism in relation to science and philosophy of science. Bachelard's philosophy was subject to various revisionist readings in the course of its migration from philosophy and history of science to cultural, and literary theory. The results are evident not only in literary studies – a fairly safe zone for such ideas – but also in disciplines which have taken the postmodern-textualist turn, among them history, sociology, political theory and even philosophy of science. In this instance it is Bohr's formulations – including his celebrated complementarity-principle – which leave one doubting their philosophic rigour while Jacques Derrida emerges as a thinker of the utmost sustained analytic power. What typically governs our choice in such matters is a conservative desire to save as much as possible of the existing stock of belief while at the same time seeking to minimize conflicts by making whatever pragmatic adjustments are required in order to maintain coherence.
