To study Bachelard’s epistemology, this article takes the concept of ‘la rupture’ as theme. As the rupture has been continuously grown up by adjusted and complicated through whole of his works of epistemology, the importance of the rupture in his epistemology proves that rupture is the most suitable tool to overview his entire epistemology itself. So this article consists of three questions about the rupture and its explanations. The rupture <from where>, <from what>, <by what> are the questions. Through the question of <from where>, we can see what is the critique of Bachelard about the positivist’s understanding of the history of natural science. That understanding is based on the idea of the general science(une science du général), that the history of natural science has been gradually expanded and developed. On the contrary, Bachelard emphasizes the history of natural science as renovative and continuous movement. In the modern physics, the former theory hasn’t any causal relation to a latter theory. Rather, the former has been revaluated by the latter, and relocated in the new theoretical system.
On the question of <from what>, we will see that rupture from a epistemological obstacle, as a unique concept of Bachelard’s epistemology, especially we will treat rupture of the common sense and the prior or the first view. To accept an outcome of new theory of natural science, the common sense and the first view work as the epistemological obstacle. Bachelard insists on that if we want to accept a new theory of natural science, we must rupture from the first view and the common sense, because a new theory has no theoretical relation to the former theory.
On the question of <by what>, we will see that how the contemporary science makes difference between connaissance commune and connaissance scienfitique. The contemporary science indirectly accesses to scientific object by new experimental instrument. But it is not that a outcome of contemporary science is produced only by new experimental instrument. That outcome has been produced by the ensemble of the theoretical thought, in other words, the creative plan about an experiment and the experimental instrument. by these reasons, we will see that the object of contemporary science is not given to us, but created by us.
In conclusion, we claim that questions the rupture <from where>, <from what>, <by what>, and explanations of three aspects of rupture are summarized to the dynamic of Bachelard’s epistemology. We conclude the dynamic, that is the movement what operates in his epistemology.