Mario Bunge

From Philosopedia

Bunge, Mario Augusto (21 September 1919— )

Bunge is the Argentina-born Frothingham professor of foundations and philosophy of science at McGill University in Canada.

A Humanist Laureate in the Council for Secular Humanism’s International Academy of Humanism, he addressed the Tenth International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) World Congress held in Buffalo (1988).

In Madrid in 1995, he spoke on the subject, “A Favour de la intolerancia.”

Bunge is author of more than 400 articles and 35 books on physics, metaphysics, semantics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and ethics. He wrote "Counter-Enlightenment in Contemporary Studies" in Challenges To The Enlightenment, In Defense of Reason and Science (1994), Finding Philosophy in Social Science (1996), and with Martin Mahner Fundamentals of Biophilosophy (1997).

In 1996 he spoke at the Humanist World Congress in Mexico City on how informatics is a double-edged weapon: involved are both formation and deformation. Humanists, he noted, welcome technical innovation but although it can empower some it moves others further from the center of society and, therefore, does not necessarily lead to an egalitarian society. One of our present concerns, he warned, is that of the excess of information: to know something, we must ignore much information. Computers, unfortunately, lack intuition, he observed, and the internet cannot replace libraries. Although husband and wife can communicate on the screen, they will not settle for the satisfaction of “virtual love.” Just the same, we have every right to be enthusiastic about technology, Bunge stated, but technology needs to be used with intelligence and moderation.

He signed Humanist Manifesto 2000.

{HNS2; International Humanist News, December 1996; New Humanist, December 1996}