Com a bonita idade de cem anos faleceu recentemente o físico e filósofo de ciência Mario Bunge. Conheci-o pessoalmente quando ele um dia visitou a Universidade de Coimbra coma mulher. Gostou tanto que queria cá ficar. Mas Portugal não tinha condições para lhe fazer uma proposta como não teve ao seu mestre, o físico Guido Beck, que durante a Segunda Guerra foi de Portugal para a Argentina, onde Bunge nasceu. Bunge é um exemplo de clareza na escrita filosófica. E é um exemplo no combate à pseudo-ciência. Traduzi e publiquei um artigo seu sobre a teoria quântica na Gazeta de Física. Eis uma nota sobre ele que me chegou do meu colega Michael Matthews, da Austrália:
Mario
Bunge, the centenarian Argentine/Canadian physicist/philosopher passed
away in the loving company of his wife Marta and children Eric and
Silvia on 24th
February 2020 in Montreal.
Bunge, five years ago, wrote a 500-page autobiography
HERE.
By drawing upon his prodigious memory for decades-old readings, events and conversations, it
laid out in fascinating detail his personal, family, cultural and scholarly life. The
Memoir is enormously educative and a delight to read. It has
1,200 entries in its Name Index. He manages to say something insightful
about the life and work of nearly every person mentioned in the Index.
It is a ‘Who’s Who?’ of modern South American,
Anglo-American, and European physics and philosophy. The book with ample quotations is reviewed
HERE.
A 30-page account of Bunge’s life, achievements and central philosophical positions can be read
HERE. His
scientific, philosophical, social and educational positions are elaborated and appraised in a recent 41-chapter
Festschrift HERE.
In
70 books and 540 articles , written over an 80-year span, he made
substantial contributions to physics, philosophy of physics,
metaphysics, methodology and philosophy
of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of psychology,
philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of
technology, moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, medical
philosophy, criminology, legal philosophy and education
HERE.
For
many, Bunge’s realist interpretation of quantum mechanics was his major
contribution to modern physics. In 2003 he surveyed the arguments
in his ‘Twenty-Five Centuries of Quantum Physics: From Pythagoras to Us, and from Subjectivism to Realism’
HERE.
In a journal double-issue, ten physicists and philosophers laid out and
appraised his ‘signature’ account of quantum mechanics, with Bunge
replying
HERE.
The
unifying thread of Bunge’s life and research was the constant and
vigorous advancement of the Enlightenment project that brings science
and philosophy together for the
advancement of human welfare. He expended the same energy on criticism
of cultural and academic movements that deny or devalue the core
principles of the project: naturalism; the search for objective,
trans-personal, non-subjective truth; the universality
of science; the value of rationality; and respect for individuals.
Bunge’s
passing is a loss for his family and the scholarly world. Hopefully
some in the succeeding generations of philosophers, physicists and
educators will be inspired
to emulate his example of a wide-ranging, in-depth, cosmopolitan
approach to the advancement of knowledge and the formation of a just and
equitable society. He embodies the best, and more, of the liberal
education ideal.
Professor Michael R. Matthews
School of Education, UNSW, Sydney 2052, Australia
Email:
m.matthews@unsw.edu.au
Author,
Science Teaching: The Contribution of HPS: www.routledge.com/9780415519342
Author,
Feng Shui: Teaching About Science & Pseudoscience https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030188214
Editor,
HPS&ST Research Handbook (3 vols) https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400776531
Editor, HPS&ST Newsletter:
http://www.hpsst.com/
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