Mario Bunge
Encyclopedia
Mario Augusto Bunge (ˈbuŋxe; born September 21, 1919, Buenos Aires
) is an Argentine
philosopher
and physicist
mainly active in Canada
.
in physico-mathematical sciences in 1952. He was professor of theoretical physics
and philosophy, 1956–1966, first at La Plata then at University of Buenos Aires
. He is currently the Frothingham Professor of Logics and Metaphysics at McGill University
in Montreal, where he has been since 1966.
Mario Bunge has been distinguished with sixteen honorary doctorates and four honorary professorships by universities from both the Americas and Europe. Bunge is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(1984- ) and of the Royal Society of Canada
(1992- ). In 1982 he was awarded the Premio Príncipe de Asturias (Prince of Asturias Award), and in 2009 the Guggenheim Fellowship
.
, ontology
, epistemology, philosophy of science
, and ethics
. Here, Bunge develops a comprehensive scientific outlook which he then applies to the various natural and social sciences.
His thinking embodies global rationalism
, scientific realism
, materialism
and consequentialism
. Bunge has repeatedly and explicitly denied being a logical positivist
, and has written on metaphysics
, a topic dismissed by the Vienna Circle
as meaningless. In the political
arena, Bunge has defined himself as a "Left-wing
liberal", in the tradition of the Argentine "positivist" movement of José Ingenieros
and Carlos Octavio Bunge (his uncle).
Popularly, he is known by his public remarks considering the psychoanalysis
an example of pseudoscience
.
; in Potok's first novel, The Chosen, there is a university professor named Abraham Flesser who makes a cameo appearance in chapter 13 and whose ideas bear a strong resemblance to those of Professor Bunge.
Works about Mario Bunge:
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
) is an Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
philosopher
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and physicist
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
mainly active in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Biography
Bunge began his studies at the National University of La Plata, graduating with a Ph.D.Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in physico-mathematical sciences in 1952. He was professor of theoretical physics
Theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics which employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena...
and philosophy, 1956–1966, first at La Plata then at University of Buenos Aires
University of Buenos Aires
The University of Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina and the largest university by enrollment in Latin America. Founded on August 12, 1821 in the city of Buenos Aires, it consists of 13 faculties, 6 hospitals, 10 museums and is linked to 4 high schools: Colegio Nacional de Buenos...
. He is currently the Frothingham Professor of Logics and Metaphysics at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
in Montreal, where he has been since 1966.
Mario Bunge has been distinguished with sixteen honorary doctorates and four honorary professorships by universities from both the Americas and Europe. Bunge is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
(1984- ) and of the Royal Society of Canada
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...
(1992- ). In 1982 he was awarded the Premio Príncipe de Asturias (Prince of Asturias Award), and in 2009 the Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
.
Work
Bunge is a very prolific intellectual, having written more than 400 papers and 80 books, notably his monumental Treatise on Basic Philosophy in 8 volumes (1974-1989), a comprehensive and rigorous study of those philosophical aspects Bunge takes to be the core of modern philosophy: semanticsSemantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
, ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
, epistemology, philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
, and ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
. Here, Bunge develops a comprehensive scientific outlook which he then applies to the various natural and social sciences.
His thinking embodies global rationalism
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
, scientific realism
Scientific realism
Scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be...
, materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
and consequentialism
Consequentialism
Consequentialism is the class of normative ethical theories holding that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness of that conduct...
. Bunge has repeatedly and explicitly denied being a logical positivist
Logical positivism
Logical positivism is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology.It may be considered as a type of analytic...
, and has written on metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
, a topic dismissed by the Vienna Circle
Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle was an association of philosophers gathered around the University of Vienna in 1922, chaired by Moritz Schlick, also known as the Ernst Mach Society in honour of Ernst Mach...
as meaningless. In the political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
arena, Bunge has defined himself as a "Left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
liberal", in the tradition of the Argentine "positivist" movement of José Ingenieros
José Ingenieros
José Ingenieros was an Argentine physician, pharmaceutic, positivist philosopher and essayist.He was born Giuseppe Ingegneri in Palermo , and graduated from the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine in 1900...
and Carlos Octavio Bunge (his uncle).
Popularly, he is known by his public remarks considering the psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
an example of pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
.
Trivia
One of Bunge's earliest American doctoral students was a future novelist named Chaim PotokChaim Potok
Chaim Potok was an American Jewish author and rabbi. Potok is most famous for his first book The Chosen, a 1967 novel which was listed on The New York Times’ best seller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies.-Biography :Herman Harold Potok was born in The Bronx, New York City, to...
; in Potok's first novel, The Chosen, there is a university professor named Abraham Flesser who makes a cameo appearance in chapter 13 and whose ideas bear a strong resemblance to those of Professor Bunge.
Publications
Works by Mario Bunge:- 1960. La ciencia, su método y su filosofía. Buenos Aires: Eudeba. (In French: La science, sa méthode et sa philosophie. Paris: Vigdor, 2001. [ISBN 2-910243-90-7])
- 1962. Intuition and Science. Prentice-Hall. (In French: Intuition et raison. Paris: Vigdor, 2001. [ISBN 2-910243-89-3])
- 1967. Scientific Research. Strategy and Philosophy. Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag. Reprinted as Philosophy of Science (1998).
- 1967. Foundations of Physics. Berlin-Heidelberg-New York: Springer-Verlag (1967), Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-11999
- 1973. Philosophy of Physics. Dordrecht: Reidel.
- 1980. The Mind-Body Problem. Oxford: Pergamon.
- 1984. "What is Pseudoscience", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol.9, No.1, (Fall 1984), pp.36–46.
- 1974–89. Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Bunge's Treatise on Basic Philosophy stands as his major achievement. It encompasses a quadrivium which he considers "the nucleus of contemporary philosophy", namely, semanticsSemanticsSemantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
(theories of meaning and truth), ontologyOntologyOntology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
(general theories of the world), epistemology (theories of knowledge), and ethicsEthicsEthics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
(theories of value and right action). For approximately two decades, Bunge engaged in writing his magnum opus in order to investigate and synthesize contemporary philosophy in a single grand system that is compatible with the advancement of modern human knowledge both scientifically and philosophically. A - Treatise on Basic Philosophy, 8 volumes in 9 parts: Semantics - I: Sense and Reference. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1974. II: Interpretation and Truth. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1974. Ontology - III: The Furniture of the World. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1977. IV: A World of Systems. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979. Epistemology and Methodology - V: Epistemology and Methodology I: Exploring the World. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983. VI: Epistemology and Methodology II: Understanding the World. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983. VII: Epistemology and Methodology III: philosophy of science and technology: Part I. Formal and Physical Sciences. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1985. Part II. Life Science, Social Science and Technology. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1985. Axiology and Ethics - VIII: Ethics: the Good and the Right. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1989. All of these 8 volumes in 9 parts are currently in print, available under the Springer-Verlag imprint. - 1996. Finding Philosophy in Social Science. Yale University Press.
- 1998. Dictionary of Philosophy. Prometheus Books.
- 1998. Philosophy of Science, 2 Vols. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
- 1999. The Sociology-Philosophy Connection. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
- 2001. Philosophy in Crisis. Prometheus Books.
- 2003. Emergence and Convergence: Qualitative Novelty and the Unity of Knowledge. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- 2006. Chasing Reality: Strife over Realism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- 2009. Political Philosophy. Fact, Fiction, and Vision. New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Transaction.
- 2010: Matter and Mind. Dordrecht-Heidelberg-Londres-Nueva York, Springer.
Works about Mario Bunge:
- Wan, Poe Yu-ze. 2011. Reframing the Social: Emergentist Systemism and Social Theory. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing.
- VV. AA. 2003. Congreso-homenaxe internacional a Mario Bunge. Mos (Galicia), Grupo Aletheia. [Includes articles in Spanish by M. Bunge (Inverse problems), J. Aracil (MB and systems theory), A. Barceló (Philosophy and economics: three Bungen notions), I, Morgado (Brain, mind and philosophy), J. Mosterín (Biographical sketch of MB), M. A. Quintanilla (Instrumental rationality) y Héctor Vucetich (Quantum mechanics and realism), and in English by M. Mahner (M. Bunge's philosophy of biology)].
- Denis, Andy. 2003. Methodology and policy prescription in economic thought: a response to Mario Bunge.
- Denegri, Guillermo and Gladys E. Martínez. 2000. Tópicos actuales en filosofía de la ciencia. Homenaje a Mario Bunge en su 80º aniversario. Mar del Plata, Editorial Martín.
- Marone, Luis and Rafael González del Solar. 2000. <<Homenaje a Mario Bunge, o por qué las preguntas en Ecología deberían comenzar con "por qué".>> In Denegri, Guillermo and Gladys E. Martínez. 2000. Tópicos actuales en filosofía de la ciencia. Homenaje a Mario Bunge en su 80º aniversario. Mar del Plata, Editorial Martín. Pp. 153–178.
- Vacher, Laurent-Michel, 1993. Entretiens avec Mario Bunge. Montreal, Liber.
- Weingartner, Paul and Georg J.W.Dorn (eds.). 1990. Studies on Mario Bunge's Treatise. Amsterdam-Atlanta, GA, Rodopi.
- Serroni-Copello, Raúl. 1989. Encuentros con Mario Bunge. Asociación de Investigaciones en Psicología.
- Agassi, Joseph and Robert S. Cohen (eds.). 1982. Scientific Philosophy Today: Essays in Honor of Mario Bunge. Dordrecht, D. ReidelD. ReidelD. Reidel was an academic publishing company based in Dordrecht. It joined with Kluwer in the 1990s as Kluwer/Reidel, together being purchased by Cinven and Candover in 2003. Cinven and Candover also purchased Springer, merging the operations of all the publishers into one conglomerate, Springer...
.