Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Mario Bunge

10 quotes

“The motto of science is not just Pauca but rather Plurima ex paucissimis — the most out of the least.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mario Bunge, The myth of simplicity, 1963, p, 82; Cited in: C.C. Gaither, ‎Alma E Cavazos-Gaither (2000), Scientifically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations, p. 187
“A definitely undesirable rationale sustaining the cult of simplicity is of a metaphysical nature: namely, the wish to attain the ultimate atoms of experience and/or reality ... this drive, which feeds metaphysical fundamentalism, is dangerous because it leads to postulating the final simplicity of some form of experience or some kind of substance thereby barring any inquiry into their structure.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mario Bunge, The myth of simplicity, 1963, p, 86-87; As cited in: Colin E. Gunton (1993), The One, the Three and the Many, p. 44
“We all would to know more and, at the same time, to receive less information. In fact, the problem of a worker in today's knowledge industry is not the scarcity of information but its excess. The same holds for professionals: just think of a physician or an executive, constantly bombarded by information that is at best irrelevant. In order to learn anything we need time. And to make time we must use information filters allowing us to ignore most of the information aimed at us. We must ignore much to learn a little.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mario Bunge, Philosophy in Crisis: The Need for Reconstruction, 2001, p. 20.
“If one aims to judge political movements, their deeds are far more important than their speeches, which are often masking rather than revealing.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Emergence and Convergence (2003), p. 424.
“Bunge: In September I will be 90 years old. Reporter: You look very youthful. Bunge: That's because I avoid alcohol, tobacco, and postmodernism.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: La desigualdad provoca enfermedad," interview to elPeriódico.com (in Spanish), July 29, 2009.
“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.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Matter and Mind (2010), p. 259.
“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.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Matter and Mind (2010), p. 264.
“At all times pseudoprofound aphorisms have been more popular than rigorous arguments.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Evaluating Philosophies (2012), p. xiv.
“Logical positivism was progressive compared with the classical positivism of Ptolemy, Hume, d'Alembert, Compte, John Stuart Mill, and Ernst Mach. It was even more so by comparison with its contemporary rivals—, , , , , and existentialism. However, neo-positivism failed dismally to give a faithful account of science, whether natural or social. It failed because it remained anchored to sense-data and to a phenomenalist metaphysics, overrated the power of induction and underrated that of hypothesis, and denounced realism and materialism as metaphysical nonsense. Although it has never been practiced consistently in the advanced natural sciences and has been criticized by many philosophers, notably Popper (1959 [1935], 1963), logical positivism remains the tacit philosophy of many scientists. Regrettably, the anti-positivism fashionable in the metatheory of social science is often nothing but an excuse for sloppiness and wild speculation.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mario Bunge (1996). Finding Philosophy in Social Science. Yale University Press. p. 317.
“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 reproached 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.”
Mario Bunge (1919–2020) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Xenius, Platón y Manolito," newspaper essay (in Spanish) in La Nación, July 9, 2008.