02/25/2020 - 7:11
- Clarín.com
- Society
A century of life (exquisite, intense, captivating). More than 50 books, thousands of articles (mostly in English). A man who synthesizes the passion for Intelligence and Knowledge, with reflections that "before judgments" are an invitation to debate and the search for the deepest thing that makes the human being. That was Mario Bunge who, beyond the usual "academic" discussions, remains for the history of "Argentine and even beyond" thought as an inescapable reference to the philosophical field. He could not ignore the political approach, even though his mentor, Guido Beck, had advised him that "scientists should not act in politics." But politics was always present in Bunge's life, from his childhood to the end, always backed by the theoretical and scientific foundations that made his life and daily work.
One could take it as a "provocateur", rather than a revolutionary. But the truth is that texts, reflections and personality classes such as Mario Augusto Bunge's are the ones that really teach us to think, and finally lead us to the essential questions of life.
Son of a prestigious doctor, Augusto Bunge, and a nurse of German descent, María Müser, Mario Bunge was born in Florida, Vicente López, on September 21, 1919. His grandfather was president of the Supreme Court of Justice but, at the Once, the only one among eight brothers who refused to buy a cheap land field. From there the “intellectual branch” of the Bunge was formed while the other would become the most powerful economic group in Argentina for several decades.
In his childhood, Mario Bunge toured the first working class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires with his father who - besides being the founder of the so-called "medical sociology" - was also a writer and deputy for socialism. Mario Bunge studied at the National School Buenos Aires, but called himself "a mediocre student in almost all subjects, and bad in the others."
Rebel daily, he had fantasies of editor: he published a student magazine in whose initial number he placed on the cover a cartoon of his calligraphy teacher, which he nicknamed "The Monkey." He was accumulating suspensions for misconduct, and his father always had to help him. "He had confidence in me, despite my bad grades," he recalled.
Mario Bunge (AFP)
And one day, Mario Bunge himself decided to leave the prestigious school to give "as free" in another the remaining subjects and complete the secondary. He was as rebellious as a fervent reader: the initiatory books of Marxism, the humanism of Bertrand Russell, the English astrophysicists Arthur Eddington and James Jeans. He would also have written two youth novels that, he says, "fortunately they overlapped on the night of time."
But there was born his vocation for physics and philosophy, which would accompany him throughout his life.
Therefore, since 1938 he studied physics at the University of La Plata, Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, where he was a student of Ernesto Sábato. He contacted the Austrian physicist Guido Beck, who directed his doctoral thesis: "The kinematics of the relativistic electron".
But Bunge searched them as a translator, uncertain business entrepreneur, private physics teacher. And it took six years to develop that thesis.
The day of the presentation, he was late: he had been injured playing football with his youngest son, Mario ("Bambi"). In the end, they handed him the diploma in an office.
The arrival of Peronism found him on the opposite sidewalk. Close to the (heterogeneous) socialist ideas, in 1944 he founded a philosophical magazine called Minerva, where the goal was to "defend the rationalism of irrational forces." And there they published Rodolfo Mondolfo, the Spanish mathematician Julio Rey Pastor or the philosopher Risieri Frondizi, then rector of the UBA.
Bunge had some militancy in the Democratic Union ─aquella confluence of conservatives, radicals and leftists who confronted Perón in the elections of 46─ and charged him: Peronism in power denied him a passport to travel and study in Europe. Also, in 1951, Bunge spent a week in prison at the Penitentiary of La Plata for supporting the railway strike.
He tells that in prison he met a famous malefactor, Witch Fingers. “We were both professionals: the pickpocket, the physical. He was the only decent common prisoner in our group, ”said Bunge. And later he dedicated an essay on criminology, with which he was to open a meeting, nothing less than at the University of Cambridge.
Diploma in physics, Bunge was definitely inclined to philosophy. And even when he won in 1957 the competitions to teach epistemology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UBA, and theoretical physics at the Platense University, he had many difficulties to practice.
His innovative style clashed with customs, and even faced student centers. Instead of taking exams, Bunge handed out magazine articles to discuss with his students, commissioned reports, promoted debates.
Mario Bunge, in 2013. (David Fernández)
He was married to the architect Julia Molina and Vedia, they had two children (the atomic physicist Carlos and the mathematician Mario). But in some of those classes in the late 50s he met who ─defined─ “my best student”. It was Marta Cavallo. He would become his second wife ─ mother of architect Eric and neuroscience professor Silvia─ and also a doctor of mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.
In the tumultuous 1960s, Bunge assumed that Argentina was marked by military coups. The Liberator had passed, also the skirmishes between blue and red (and the overthrow of Frondizi). And "as I would reveal later" "I didn't want to see more military coups." It was a premonition.
He went to the United States (universities of Texas, Temple, Delaware). Nor did he like the "weather" - the Vietnam War, the invasion of Santo Domingo - and with a Humboldt scholarship he went to the German University of Freiburg, where he would write one of his essential texts: "Fundamentals of Physics" (1967) .
From there he went to what would be his top destination, as professor emeritus at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he founded the University of Fundamentals and Philosophy of Science. McGill was the center of all his teachings and studies, also of his wife's chairs.
He would just retire in 2010, after 90 years. When asked the "recipe" to get splendid at that age, he replied: "Do not read the postmodern, do not smoke, do not drink alcohol, do not do too much sport. But keep the brain agile. If one stops learning, the brain stops working. ”
Still retired from day-to-day classes, he was still active in his theoretical production and in consultations. “I have many problems to solve, I don't have time to die,” he said, splendid, about to turn a century.
Argentina - in whose philosophy teaching centers had so often avoided Bunge - received it in the Kirchnerist era, by the administration of Minister Barañao. Beyond political speculation, Bunge had words of praise: "If there is anything salvageable from the K government, it supports science, scientific research."
Their collaborations with Argentine media and specialists also became more frequent, in a reunion after so many decades away. Eudeba and Gedisa published their autobiography "Memories Between Two Worlds" (2014). What had not changed were the foundations of his knowledge, his convictions.
Bunge's impressive work
More than 50 books, hundreds of articles and thousands of lectures revealed the wisdom of Bunge in different fields, even though physics ─first─ and philosophy later, as the axis of his action, were the main ones.
His Philosophy Treaty, developed between 1974 and 1989, covers topics ranging from ethics to economics, from biopsychology to mathematics. On his own legacy he said that “it is not limited to philosophy and science, it also includes metaphysics, knowledge theory, ethics and political philosophy. My main contribution is to build a philosophical system with new ideas. It is a new philosophy characterized by realism. ”
Strong critic of what he called "pseudosciences," he argued that "objective knowledge, supported by strong evidence and valid theories is far superior to hunches." And so he wrote in his work "Pseudosciences, what a trap", one of the best known and provocative.
And he affirmed: “Pseudosciences consist in presenting themselves as if they were authentic sciences. But they lack the essential properties, especially compatibility with previous knowledge and empirical contrast. ”
Mario Bunge wrote more than 50 books. (Photo: David Fernández)
For Bunge, only science "leads to objective and impersonal truths." And he believes that "pseudosciences are harmful when they ally with political power or intend to replace medicine." He considered that some were very destructive: “Astrology is harmless. But psychoanalysis and alternative medicines are harmful. ” And so he undertook it even with homeopathy "that prevents treating the patient in a scientific way."
In the strictly philosophical field he undertook it against some of the most recognized in the academic field: Hegel, Wittegengstein, Foucault. He called this "trickster." And about Heidegger he wrote that "he was a living, who took advantage of the German academic tradition."
And about the so-called "contemporary moral philosophers" questioned: "They continue to deal with problems of individual morality, but the main ethical problems are those that affect large populations. For example, the problem of poor health in very large sectors or the expansion of the drug seems more important. You have to attack it at the root, to the drug trade, and not just tell the boys not to get high. ”
Ultimately, Bunge questioned all the postmodern and irrationalist currents that Latin American universities took over. And under his criticism - from a very young age - psychoanalysis also fell. He called "great macaneador" Freud himself. “In Argentina, the faculties of psychology are dominated by the Lacanians. Once I put in a book 'charlacanismo' and the proofreader placed 'charlatanismo', I thought it was a mistake of mine ... No, it was not, I thought so ”.
His first book was "Topics of popular education" (1943) and, among the subsequent ones, "The principle of causality in modern science" (1959), "Intuition and science" (1962), "Materialism and science" ( 1981) or, later, "Intuition and reason" (2005). The following year he published "100 ideas, the book to think and discuss in coffee", which summarized his numerous journalistic publications.
On his political convictions, he recalled - in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País in 2015 - that “when I was young, I had hope in authoritarian socialism, in the revolution. Those hopes evaporate. My attitude towards Marxist philosophy changed. I made a detailed critique of the dialectic, the core of Marxist philosophy. And it is confusing and, at best, false. ”
Bunge also considered that “capitalism has had its historical merits, but it is morally unsustainable. The productivity of all industrial sectors doubled in the last half century, but wages remained constant. That is, a few benefited. The rich became richer and the poor stayed the same or worse. On that side, Marxists are right, but the alternative they propose is not viable because they confuse socialization with nationalization. ”
Without neglecting some of those ideals of his youth - also a legacy of his father - Bunge came to consider that socialism "must be democratic, cooperative and comprehensive." And that an ideal system "would be to combine democracy with socialism."