Discurso sobre o progresso da Ciência à luz das rupturas epistemológicas em Gaston Bachelard

Abstract

The work reflects on the epistemological ruptures as a discourse on the progress of science in Gaston Bachelard, since authentic scientific activity, after the astonishing intellectual maturity of the 20th century, is more complex than what was exposed in the construction of classical science or neo-positivism, in which scientific progress was of the type of development-by-accumulation, as a linear process of making observations, formulating questions, constructing hypotheses, carrying out experiments, analyzing data and obtaining conclusions. This characterization and even the label itself are probabilistic representations. Hypothesis testing in science is not a linear process in which each step is a discrete event, whose parameters are considered only after the previous step is completed. In authentic scientific practice, several steps are often considered in relation to each other at the beginning of the investigation. Imagination, intuition, creation and reason participate in the construction of science. The inspiration to produce science can even come from metaphysics. Thus, in the current conception of epistemology, scientific theories are created, invented or constructed. In this construction, crises, ruptures and profound reformulations occur. Therefore, with this theme there is an urgent need to answer the following question: to what extent does science progress through epistemological ruptures in Gaston Bachelard? And to answer this question, the work has as its general objective to reflect on epistemological ruptures as alternatives for the progress of science in Gaston Bachelard. And to aid in the reflection, the method of bibliographic review was used, in which the development starts from the material already elaborated, consisting mainly of works by Bachelard and scientific articles on the subject. Therefore, the theoretical framework of this work is based on Bachelard's epistemology, which considers that the scientist never starts from pure experience for research, but rather knows himself against previous knowledge, destroying poorly made knowledge and overcoming what within his own mind constitutes an obstacle. Therefore, scientific knowledge is transformed through discontinuity, through epistemological ruptures. Epistemological ruptures challenge common sense and encounter resistance in epistemological obstacles, while the psychoanalysis of objective knowledge explores how psychological and social factors can influence the entire process of construction and acceptance of scientific knowledge. These ideas together help to understand how scientific knowledge develops and how it is received by society. (TRADUÇÃO NOSSA)