Motherless, Suzanne Bachelard was raised by her father, the famous philosopher Gaston Bachelard. Father and daughter had a close relationship. She accompanied him to international congresses during her childhood. Naturally, she studied philosophy, graduating in 1939.
She studied philosophy and mathematics at the Sorbonne during the war under Jean Cavaillès.
After passing the agrégation competitive teaching exam in 1947, she began her career as a teacher. In 1957, she secured a post at Lille Faculty of Arts.
In 1961, she became a lecturer in the history and philosophy of exact sciences. In 1963, however, she joined the Paris-Sorbonne University, where she ended her career in 1986. Suzanne Bachelard was highly cultured, read works in their original versions and was passionate about opera.
In 1958, in La Conscience de la rationalité (The Consciousness of Rationality), Suzanne Bachelard established that any rational science is a branching science. She studied the links between reason and experience, drawing on the philosophy of Husserl, in which she was a specialist.