Mario Bunge

Mario Augusto Bunge (/ˈbʊŋɡeɪ/ BUUNG-gay; Spanish: [ˈmaɾjo ˈβuŋxe]; September 21, 1919 – February 24, 2020) was an Argentine-Canadian philosopher and physicist. His philosophical writings combined scientific realism, systemism, materialism, emergentism, and other principles.

He was an advocate of "exact philosophy" and a critic of existentialist, hermeneutical, phenomenological philosophy, and postmodernism. He was popularly known for his opinions against pseudoscience.

Bunge was born on September 21, 1919, in Florida Oeste, Buenos Aires. His mother, Marie Herminie Müser, was a German nurse who left Germany just before the beginning of World War I. His father, Augusto Bunge, also of some German descent, was an Argentine physician and socialist legislator. Mario, who was the couple's only child, was raised without any religious education, and enjoyed a happy and stimulating childhood in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Bunge had four children: Carlos Federico and Mario Augusto Julio, with ex-wife Julia Delfina Molina y Vedia, and Eric R. and Silvia A., with his wife of over 60 years, the Argentine mathematician Marta Cavallo. Mario lived with Cavallo in Montreal from 1966 until his death, with one-year sabbaticals in other countries.

Bunge began his studies at the National University of La Plata, graduating with a PhD in physico-mathematical sciences in 1952. He was professor of theoretical physics and philosophy, 1956–1966, first at La Plata then at University of Buenos Aires. His international debut was at the 1956 Inter-American Philosophical Congress in Santiago, Chile. He was particularly noticed there by Willard Van Orman Quine, who called Bunge the star of the congress. He was, until his retirement at age 90, the Frothingham Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at McGill University in Montreal, where he had been since 1966.

In a review of Bunge's 2016 memoirs, Between Two Worlds: Memoirs of a Philosopher-Scientist, James Alcock saw in Bunge "a man of exceedingly high confidence who has lived his life guided by strong principles about truth, science, and justice" and one who is "[impatient] with muddy thinking".

He became a centenarian in September 2019. A Festschrift was published to mark the occasion, with essays by an international collection of scholars. He died in Montreal, Canada, on February 24, 2020, at the age of 100.

Bunge defined himself as a left-wing liberal and democratic socialist, in the tradition of John Stuart Mill and José Ingenieros. He was a supporter of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which advocates for democratic reform in the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.