Latest Mario Bunge Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• My Third-World roots remind me that the vast majority of our fellow human beings live hungry, sick, and uneducated, and that most social scientists, even in that world, ignore that ugly reality. This is why my papers in mathematical sociology deal not with free choice among 30 flavors of ice-cream, but with social structure, social cohesion, and social marginality.

  Mario Bunge

  Reality, Ice, Roots

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• It occurred to me that I had the duty to give society something in exchange for the free education I was getting.

  Mario Bunge

  Free Education, Giving, Duty

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• To me, work is not a burden but my main hobby. This is why I always take work with me when I go on holidays. Moreover, that's when new projects occur to me: while contemplating beautiful landscapes or seascapes.

  Mario Bunge

  Beautiful, Holiday, Hobbies

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• All genuine philosophy transcends national boundaries. Patriotic philosophies are just nationalist ideologies.

  Mario Bunge

  Philosophy, Patriotic, Boundaries

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• Communication accompanies social transactions and can instruct or stultify, mobilize or intimidate, but it is no substitute for production, collaboration and fight.

  Mario Bunge

  Communication, Fighting, Collaboration

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• All the electronic devices are weakening the social bonds. Sociologists and psychologists should study this serious threat instead of repeating that communication is the cement of society.

  Mario Bunge

  Communication, Serious, Study

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• The fact is that all the important political philosophers and scientists from the great Aristotle on, with the exception of those of the French Enlightenment and Mill, have sided with the powers that be.

  Mario Bunge

  Political, Important, Enlightenment

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• I pity the babies whose mothers are busy texting trivialities instead of playing with their children; I pity the children who are tethered to their cell phones instead of playing ball; I pity the adolescents who are wasting their best years holding one of those artefacts instead of the hand of another young person.

  Mario Bunge

  Mother, Baby, Children

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• Few if any political philosophers have had the courage of tackling the Cold War. Even the best of them have kept silent or have stated some bromides glossing over the serious shortcomings of "our" side, such as racism, social injustice, extreme income disparities, the exploitation of the Third World, and environmental degradation.

  Mario Bunge

  War, Racism, Political

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• All philosophers can do is to abstain from helping the aggressors and to enjoin social scientists to tell the truth instead of joining the choir of liars and hypocrites.

  Mario Bunge

  Liars, Hypocrite, Joining

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• A democratic state will protect the freedom to hold any beliefs other than those that harm others, such as racism. In particular, it will see to it that no one is harmed just because of her beliefs.

  Mario Bunge

  Racism, Belief, States

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• From a historical viewpoint, religion is just a kind of superstition, and from a political viewpoint it is a tool of social control.

  Mario Bunge

  Political, Historical, Tools

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• We deem valuable whatever is likely to meet our needs or wishes (individual values) and whatever is likely to help protect or attain social goals (social values). However, this is not a dichotomy, for some individual values, such as truth, are needed to secure some social values, such as mutual trust, and some social values, such as peace, are required to pursue some individual values, such as good health.

  Mario Bunge

  Social Values, Goal, Wish

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• Under theocracies and other authoritarian regimes, the rulers are the moral authorities. Under genuine democracy some basic values are entrenched in the legal system, which is expected to be under democratic vigilance, and others are left to the person or the group, which ideally debate moral problems in a rational, free and cooperative manner.

  Mario Bunge

  Democracy, Groups, Legal System

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• Science is morally neutral, but social science shows us that some moral codes are better than others.

  Mario Bunge

  Moral, Social, Shows

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• Of course you cannot free yourself from the laws of nature; but the laws of nervous systems are not the same as the physical laws.

  Mario Bunge

  Law, Free Yourself, Nervous

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• I believe that modern science supports free will, in showing that the brain can act spontaneously, not only in response to external stimuli.

  Mario Bunge

  Believe, Support, Brain

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• One can discern a few very general myths that facilitate the birth of further myths: that everything is possible; that whatever we have failed to explain in normal and earthly terms must have paranormal or supernatural explanations; and that science, being rational, cannot explain the irrational, such as taste and love.

  Mario Bunge

  And Love, Taste, Normal

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• A distinguished cognitive neuroscientist confessed to me that, because of his religious upbringing, he could not get rid of psychoneural dualism. The idea that one ceases to be after death was too painful to him.

  Mario Bunge

  Religious, Ideas, Painful

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• It is scandalous the way some scientists accept uncritically some of the most ridiculous speculations, such as the plurality of worlds, the opinion that spacetime has more than 4 dimensions, that particles can move faster than light, or that human life can be prolonged indefinitely.

  Mario Bunge

  Moving, Light, World

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• There is a continuum between science and philosophy. As Fichte said (but did not practice), philosophy should be the science of sciences.

  Mario Bunge

  Philosophy, Practice, Should

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• Philosophy can help laymen spot and reject the numerous pseudoscientific beliefs that survive in the media, such as the fantasies of psychoanalysts, evolutionary psychologists, and economic equilibrium theorists.

  Mario Bunge

  Philosophy, Media, Helping

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• Only the stupid and the wicked can fear rational criticism.

  Mario Bunge

  Stupid, Criticism, Wicked

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• I have nothing to fear from serious social studies of science, and I hope that my philosophy will help progressive science policies while showing that the most modern views of science are ignorant and regressive, even if they are accompanied by a leftist-sounding rhetoric.

  Mario Bunge

  Philosophy, Views, Ignorant

  Source: deutsche-denker.de

• One should believe only what can be chosen to be true or just. Irrational (or unjustified) beliefs should be avoided because they can have disastrous practical consequences.

  Mario Bunge

  Believe, Belief, Should

  Source: deutsche-denker.de