Methodology of naivety: The conceptual foundations of the phenomenology of the poetic image

Abstract

The article aims to clarify the concept of naivety as it is presented in the works of Georges Bachelard. Although this concept is frequently mentioned, it has not yet been clearly defined. The significance of this research lies in its connection to antagonistic phenomena such as naive science and the naive image in poetry, which are system-forming elements of Bachelard’s philosophical project. Therefore, understanding these phenomena is crucial. The research is based on the assumption that the concept being studied is not psychoanalytic in nature, because Bachelard embraces the idea of freeing thought through the phenomenological approach. He clarifying his understanding of phenomenology as a school of naivety, which is the focus of this paper. First, the author defines naivety in relation to the phenomenological method and explains that, according to Bachelard, naivety does not mean a phenomenological reduction but rather liberation from judgement. Further understanding of naivety is connected with its duality, which Bachelard noticed. The author argued that naivety is characteristic of both the dreaming consciousness and what is revealed during the daydream. The naïveté indicates the way in which a poetic image exists: the nature of an image is inherently incomplete. Being naive and experiencing naivety are therefore the same. Therefore, it is relevant to explore the concept of naivety through the phenomenological understanding of attitude as a specific mode of perception. Naivety can be under stood as an attitude that arises from the reader’s or poet’s existential engagement with the image.