Evaluating Philosophies by Mario Bunge (PDF)

Description

Preface.- Introduction.- A. How to Nuture of Hinder Research.- 1 Philosophies and phobosophies.- 2 The philosophical matrix of scientific progress.- 3 Systemics and materalism.- B. Philosophy in Action.- 4 Technoscience?.- 5 Climate and logic.- 6 Information Science: one or many?.- 7 Wealth and wellbeing.- 8 Can standard economic theory explain crises?.- 9 Marxism: Promise and reality.- 10 Rules of law: Just and unjust.- C Philosophical Gaps.- 11 Are subjective probabilities admissible? .- 12 Can induction deliver high-level hypotheses? .- 13 Bridging theory to data.- 14 Energy: physics or metaphysics? .- 15 Does quantum physics refute realism? .- 16 Parallel universes? ¿Digital physics? .- 17 Can functionalist psychology explain?.- 18 Knowledge pyramids and rosettes.- 19 Existence: one or two?.- 20 Conclusion: Evaluation Criterion.- 21 Glossary. ​

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐There are few if any serious work in Philosophy Evaluation, in particular Philosophy of Science. Its is well known and accepted that Philosophy is a sort of guide and framework to the whole knowledge system and its practitioners, but there is no near consensus on what “Philosophy” concretely is, her methods, products and quality.Philosophy in that sense is an orphan; she has no parents to ask for advice, because she feels herself at the summit of knowledge. So do many philosophers, who tend to act as if they had license to say anything with no obligation to give explanation or at least to show relevant foundation to theirs statements, as Bunge’s critics shows.Without rational criteria, indicators and metrics, philosophical work enjoy a practical status of “uncriticable”; worst, it is frequently criticized in the same manner, namely “authoritatively”, as is usual in art review. Anyway such work cannot be corrected or improved. So it’s no surprising that it cannot offer any significant improvement to knowledge.That is the reason why Mario Bunge has claimed for decades that philosophical research ought to be done in a “scientific way” not in a literary one.This book picks several interesting and important philosophical topics, from physics to economics and engineering, and suggests some methodological principles to approach them, such as systemism, scientific realism and ratioempirism. Bunge holds that philosophical research must face real knowledge problems interfacing with science and technology, instead or interpreting old texts or inventing pseudoproblems.This is a challenging, provocative and inspiring book. Too much work must be done in this arena, so junior scientists and philosophers can find here lots of lines to expand and aply Bunge’s principles of good philosophying.If you have ever felt dissapointed by philosopical jargon, excessive citation, irrational argumentation and a post-reading-vacuum feeling, try this easy to read and understand book, facing sound problems and illuminating readers on how to walk the solving paths.Dr. Marcelo BoschJanuary 2013

⭐I have been dipping into this book, reading and rereading various parts of it, for the last five years or so. I expect it (along with Bunge’s other works) to be an intellectual companion for many years to come. I have hesitated to write a review because I am so unworthy to criticize this book’s greatness, but I want to encourage anyone who is interested in philosophy to get this book and study it. The author Mario Bunge is, as you should know, one of the great philosophers of science of the 20th century. This month (September 2019) Bunge turns one hundred years old, and amazingly he is still publishing new material. My review is a kind of celebration of his centennial. This book, published in 2012, summarizes many of the high points of Bunge’s very long career.The book focuses on explaining how to distinguish philosophies that are progressive (good) from those that are reactionary (bad), according to whether a philosophy “facilitates or obstructs the advancement of knowledge”, a formula that is repeated in various ways throughout the book. In the preface Bunge says that “the proposal is to measure philosophies by the way they help inquire or act” (p. v) and in the conclusion Bunge says: “By their fruits ye shall know them: Tell me what your philosophy is doing for the search for truth or the good, and I will tell me what it is worth.” (p. 182)In between the preface and the conclusion, Bunge pours out his criteria for evaluating philosophies—conclusions distilled from a lifetime of study and not aways presented with all of the arguments that led to those conclusions, since he has at least sixty years of prodigious publishing behind him—and then he applies such evaluation to a number of his favorite problems, in chapters on the relation of science and technology, wealth and well-being, economics, Marxist philosophy, law and morality, probability, logic, the relation of theories and data, matter and energy, quantum physics and realism, free versus disciplined imagination, psychology, knowledge-organization schemes, and “existence”.Throughout the book, Bunge’s wit is scathing and comes in dazzling quantities, right from the first paragraph of the introduction, where he writes: “Usually, the adoption of a philosophy does not result from a long and anguished deliberation but, rather, from a combination of predisposition with necessity and opportunity—just as in the case of petty theft” (p. xiii). He especially pours on the acid wit in the first chapter, criticizing various types of bad philosophy. For example, the section on “escapist philosophies” escalates through various fast and funny criticisms of superficial linguistic philosophy, possible-worlds theories, and speculation about zombies, before arriving at the devastatingly serious conclusion: “When practiced in solitude and in excess, escapism is just as self-destructive as the abuse of alcohol, television, or Internet. And when taught from the chair, escapist doctrines deviate the student’s attention from interesting problems, which are both more demanding and more productive. Only parasites can afford to spend their lives day-dreaming.” (p. 12)In other moments, when Bunge’s ire seems a little misplaced or overgeneralized, he is still funny as hell, as when he lumps together Jürgen Habermas and Friedrich von Hayek in the category of “dogmatists and obscurantists”, writing: “To innovate in the young sciences it is necessary to adopt scientism. This is the methodological thesis that the best way of exploring reality is to adopt the scientific method, which may be boiled down to the rule ‘Check your guesses.’ Scientism has been explicitly opposed by dogmatists and obscurantists of all stripes, such as the neoliberal ideologist Friedrich von Hayek and the ‘critical theorist’ Jürgen Habermas, a ponderous writer who managed to amalgamate Hegel, Marx, and Freud, and decreed that ‘science is the ideology of late capitalism'” (p. 24). The cherry on this cake is the term “critical theorist” in scare quotes! Sure, you could protest that Habermas and Hayek are not all bad (not to mention all the ways that they are different from each other), but you would be unwise to ignore the big fat grain of truth in Bunge’s coarse criticism of each of them.Often when reading sections of the book I found myself disagreeing with Bunge on some points, but usually after much thought I had to admit that Bunge was right, or right enough. For example, Bunge admits that his principal criterion for evaluating philosophies—”By their fruits ye shall know them”—is “pragmatic”, but he has nothing good to say about “pragmatism”. At first this puzzled me, since I have found a lot of value in pragmatist philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey. But Bunge’s low opinion of “pragmatism” is explained by how narrowly he defines it: “The philosophical doctrine according to which practice is the source, measure, and goal of all knowledge and all value” (p. 188). A better and wider definition of pragmatism, in my view, is the one given in Nicholas Rescher’s book

⭐(also published in 2012, like Bunge’s book): “Pragmatism is rooted in the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice.” Rescher’s book also distinguished between various strains of pragmatism, which range from good to bad according to Bunge’s criteria. So often when Bunge’s conclusions about a philosophy seem questionable, it is because he does not distinguish between different versions of that philosophy, as Rescher distinguishes between kinds of pragmatism. This explains some of Bunge’s head-scratching choices, such as “Nietzsche, Peirce, Dewey” as representatives of pragmatism: Nietzsche?!? Bunge, you are painting with a broad brush indeed! But I get your point, thanks very much.Bunge acknowledges that some of the philosophers whom he dismisses may have had a few redeeming ideas; this is how Bunge redeems himself from some of the overgeneralizations he makes by painting with such a broad brush. He calls these philosophies (and philosophers) ambivalent: progressive in some ways and regressive in others: “In short, before praising or condemning a philosophical school as a whole, let us see whether it has left something positive. After all, it may well be that in philosophy there are not gold seams but only some gold nuggets.” (p. 13)One could argue that a weakness of this book is Bunge’s lack of subtlety in his portrayal of philosophies. Bunge’s blunt approach could indeed be a problem for any credulous and inexperienced readers who would treat Bunge as an authority and accept everything that he says without questioning. Don’t do that! Readers of this book should understand that Bunge is providing a very small-scale map (a large area on a small map) of the philosophical landscape that loses those details that a larger-scale map would provide. The book’s strength is that it does this so well. And just as Bunge does not provide much detail about the philosophies he discusses, so he often does not provide very detailed argumentation. Much background knowledge of relevant arguments is assumed. Readers who are new to philosophy can trust, based on Bunge’s extensive research and publications, that his conclusions are well reasoned, but they should understand that in some instances other legitimate conclusions are possible. Many readers who are already well read in philosophy will, like me, find this book to be a refreshing reminder of what is at stake and why philosophy matters.Many of Bunge’s strengths and weaknesses (especially about politics) are very charitably explained by his long-time friend Joseph Agassi in the article: “Bunge nevertheless”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 43(4), 2013, 542–562. Agassi’s article is a review of a different book by Bunge, but much of it applies just as well to this book, which was likely written around the same time period. Agassi’s title is also a great summary of my attitude toward this book: Despite a few (rare) questionable conclusions, “Bunge nevertheless” has written an amazing masterpiece.

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