Chasing Reality

Chasing Reality deals with the controversies over the reality of the external world. Distinguished philosopher Mario Bunge offers an extended defence of realism, a critique of various forms of contemporary anti-realism, and a sketch of his own version of realism, namely hylorealism. Bunge examines the main varieties of antirealism - Berkeley's, Hume's, and Kant's; positivism, phenomenology, and constructivism - and argues that all of these in fact hinder scientific research. Bunge's realist contention is that genuine explanations in the sciences appeal to causal laws and mechanisms that are not directly observable, rather than simply to empirical generalisations. Genuine science, in his view, is objective even when it deals with subjective phenomena such as feelings of fear. This work defends a realist view of universals, kinds, possibilities, and dispositions, while rejecting contemporary accounts of these that are couched in terms of modal logic and 'possible worlds.'

This book will transform the way you see the world. A timeless story told through the eyes of seven mortals reveals the nature of human immortality. Seven people shaped the way we saw the world in the past, but now they are back to reveal a higher transcendental reality in which we all live. Written in the form of a letter to God, seven people will try to awaken your spirit to a new realization of your true nature. Seven people will tell you who you are. Adam, the first human from the story of Genesis will tell you how he was created. Socrates, Alexander the Great, Anna Maria, Einstein, Trump will share their wisdom, struggles, love, knowledge, and ego so that you can learn what they had learned. In the end, Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam, will share his visions with humanity. Enoch will reveal how the story of humanity ends.

This is the first study to compare the philosophical systems of secular scientific philosopher Mario Bunge (1919-2020), and Moroccan Islamic philosopher Taha Abd al-Rahman (b.1945). In their efforts to establish the philosophical underpinnings of an ideal modernity these two great thinkers speak to the same elements of the human condition, despite their opposing secular and religious worldviews. While the differences between Bunge’s critical-realist epistemology and materialist ontology on the one hand, and Taha’s spiritualist ontology and revelational-mystical epistemology on the other, are fundamental, there is remarkable common ground between their scientific and Islamic versions of humanism. Both call for an ethics of prosperity combined with social justice, and both criticize postmodernism and religious conservatism. The aspiration of this book is to serve as a model for future dialogue between holders of Western and Islamic worldviews, in mutual pursuit of modernity’s best-case scenario.

Not many people are satisfied with the leaders we have in the public and private sectors. We are suffering from a severe lack of good leadershipeven though billions of dollars per year are spent on leadership training and development. The root cause of this leadership vacuum is that leadership gurus firmly believe, teach, and preach that anyone can be made into a leader with the right training, personal desire, and commitment. With this premise, theyve approached leadership as a commonplace and elementary skill that anyone can learn. Theres just one problem: theyre wrong. In this guidebook on leadership, youll learn about all aspects of leadership, including: how to look past personality profiles, leadership models, and traditional assessment tools to grasp what makes a great leader; how to identify and select natural born leaders to achieve your objectives; how to deal with poor leaders who hurt you and your organization. Leadership DNA examines the false premise that anyone can be a leader and provides insights and tools that lead to a better system of identifying, selecting, and developing born leaders.

This is a work of system-think on why breakthroughs mostly don’t sustain. In answer, it recalls mutual learning, by which the exceptional have defied the norms of decline since before humans could write about it. Part 1 shows the mechanics how complex adaptive systems extend order—Hayek’s catallaxy. How lean exploits this is unpacked. Part 2 isolates popular fallacies of control that incentivize undoing. Part 3 offers countermeasures—leveled exploration and exploitation in strategy deployment, standard work, and development of employees, products, services, and methods. Lean turns paradigms and routines from holding on, to sustainably moving on. Lean is not just a factory thing. Lessons abound in nature’s fractals and adaptations, admin, and history too; from the present back through World War II, the Industrial Revolution, the Reformation, to its roots in the civilizing of Antiquity. Learners mine hard lessons while knowers sadly repeat them. Great sources on catallaxy—Juran, Hayek, Popper, Kuhn, Sproul, Rother, March—have left us rich deposits of distilled experience. Sustain is a trail guide, locating pivotal insights to defy the entropy of abandon-and-revert, in any enterprise that coordinates resources, time, and treasure in the face of varying, alternative uses.

To go through the pages of the Autobiography of Mario Bunge is to accompany him through dozens of countries and examine the intellectual, political, philosophical and scientific spheres of the last hundred years. It is an experience that oscillates between two different worlds: the different and the similar, the professional and the personal. It is an established fact that one of his great loves was, and still is, science. He has always been dedicated to scientific work, teaching, research, and training men and women in multiple disciplines. Life lessons fall like ripe fruit from this book, bringing us closer to a concept, a philosophical idea, a scientific digression, which had since been uncovered in numerous notes, articles or books. Bunge writes about the life experiences in this book with passion, naturalness and with a colloquial frankness, whether they be persecutions, banishment, imprisonment, successes, would-be losses, emotions, relationships, debates, impressions or opinions about people or things. In his pages we pass by the people with whom he shared a fruitful century of achievements and incredible depths of thought. Everything is remembered with sincerity and humor. This autobiography is, in truth, Bunge on Bunge, sharing everything that passes through the sieve of his memory, as he would say. Mario’s many grandchildren are a testament to his proud standing as a family man, and at the age of 96 he gives us a book for everyone: for those who value the memories that hold the trauma of his life as well as for those who share his passion for science and culture. Also, perhaps, for some with whom he has had disagreements or controversy, for he still deserves recognition for being a staunch defender of his convictions.

Although a report by the congressionally mandated Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism concluded that biological or nuclear weapons were very likely to be unleashed in the years soon after 2001, what Americans actually have experienced are relatively low-tech threats. Yet even under a new administration, extraordinary domestic and international policies enacted by the U.S. government in the wake of 9/11 remain unchanged. Political scientist and former FBI consultant Michael Barkun argues that a nonrational, emotion-driven obsession with dangers that cannot be seen has played and continues to play an underrecognized role in sustaining the climate of fear that drives the U.S. "war on terror." Barkun identifies a gap between the realities of terrorism--"violence without a return address--and the everyday discourse about it among government officials and the general public. Demonstrating that U.S. homeland security policy reflects significant nonrational thinking, Barkun offers new recommendations for effective--and rational--policymaking.