Drawers, Chests and Wardrobes Summary and Analysis

Bachelard comments on the difference between image and metaphor, explaining that a metaphor presents a tangible object as an intangible notion that is otherwise difficult to express. A metaphor stands for the idea but has no phenomenological value itself.

Bachelard is particularly critical of Bergson's polemical use of the "drawer". Bergson also calls drawers concepts or ready-made garments into which knowledge or thinking is classified. Bachelard considers this evidence of the inadequacy of his philosophy of concept. Specifically, he wonders how reason determines into which drawer to put a new object. According to the author, Bergson's illustration of the brain has many "keep-sake boxes" in which pieces of the past are preserved. Bachelard argues that Bergson's use of metaphor is unimaginative and results in what the philosopher himself calls "dry" rationalism.

Bachelard's fundamental point is...