B

BACHELARD, GASTON (1884-1962) French scientist, philosopher and literary critic. The development of Bachelard’s early work is evident in his career path, which saw him move from the University of Dijon (193040), where he lectured on mathematics and physics, to the Sorbonne, where he became Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science (1940-62). In the latter role Bachelard undertook an investigation into the formation of scienti c knowledge, which, he argues, develops not so much by way of a gradual accumulation of facts but rather through a combative process that repeatedly challenges current ‘ xed’ modes of thinking and perception. This argument, which is often described as an account of history based on ‘epistemological breaks’, has two signi cant implications: rst, that the pre-existing ‘reality’ may lead the scientist or observer to be predisposed towards certain ideas/ hypotheses; and second, that shifts in scienti c knowledge may result in the reformulation of that reality. Bachelard’s revolutionary approach to knowledge is best expressed in his The Philosophy of No. Bachelard also produced a large volume of literary criticism, much of which emphasizes the role of the imagination. [PW]

BADIOU, ALAIN (1937-) French novelist, playwright and philosopher. Starting out as a Maoist communist, Badiou remains a committed political theorist and activist whose philosophical work explores the possibilities for radical transformation and revolutionary action inherent in any situation. In uenced by thinkers such as Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault, his works explore the ways in which thought and action occur in response to what he calls an ‘event’: ‘a hazardous, unpredictable supplement, which vanishes as soon as it appears’ (Badiou 2001: 67). The task of theory, he argues, is to respond to what is unique in each event, what challenges existing conceptions of the way the world works, and to activate the event’s revolutionary potential for change. This, he claims, is to produce the truth of the event rather than reducing it to what is already known and losing what makes it ‘hazardous’. As a materialist thinker, Badiou’s work also critiques the theological basis of contemporary theories of ethics, particularly those that develop from the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Rather than an ethics based on in nite respect for a transcendent Other, he argues that ‘genuine ethics is of truths in the plural – or, more precisely, the only ethics is of processes of truth, of the labour that brings some truths into the world’ (Badiou 2001: 67). It is, in other words, an ethics that is based on the recognition of the material singularity of each event. [SM]

BAKHTIN, MIKHAIL MIKHAYLOVICH (18951975) Russian literary historian, critic and philosopher best known for his theories about language and the novel. Bakhtin’s output was remarkably diverse, but critics have noticed his sustained interest in ‘dialogism’, the way in which meaning and artistic form always emerge in the social world, as part of a dialogue.