Mario Augusto Bunge (born 21 September 1919) is an Argentine philosopher of science, author of the Treatise on Basic Philosophy (8 volumes, 1974–1989). He earned a doctorate in physics at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina (1952) and was the Frothingham Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at McGill University, Canada, until his retirement in 2011.
Born: September 21st, 1919
Categories: Philosophers, Argentines, Living people, Systems scientists
Quotes: 7 sourced quotes total
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At all times pseudoprofound aphorisms have been more popular than rigorous arguments.
If one aims to judge political movements, their deeds are far more important than their speeches, which are often masking rather than revealing.
Bunge: In September I will be 90 years old. Reporter: You look very youthful. Bunge: That's because I avoid alcohol, tobacco, and postmodernism.
In the academic community, the subjectivist philosopher could be consider as profound. But will be taken, out of this bubble, as childish, excentric, or even lunatic.
The fact that a great many scientists signed Faustian pacts with the war devil throughout the twentieth century has given science a bad name, and has discouraged many able youngsters from pursuing a scientific career.
In academia much bogus knowledge is tolerated in the name of academic freedom – which is like allowing for the sale of contaminated food in the name of free enterprise. I submit that such tolerance is suicidal: that the serious students must be protected against the “anything goes” crowd.
When in the sciences or techniques one states that a certain problem is unsolvable, a rigorous demonstration of such unsolvability is required. And when a scientist submits an article to publication, the least that its referees demand is that it be intelligible. Why? Because rational beings long for understanding and because only clear statements are susceptible to be put to examination to verify whether they are true or false. In the Humanities it is the same, or it should be, but it is not always so. Nietzsche repproached John Stuart Mill's clarity. Henri Bergson, although an intuitionist himself, wrote clearly and declared that "clarity is the philosopher's courtesy". Obscurity is rude, because it assumes the interlocutor is incapable of understanding and dialoguing.