Gregory Klimovsky

Gregorio Klimovsky (Buenos Aires, November 18, 1922 - April 19, 2009), was an Argentine mathematician and philosopher, considered one of the greatest specialists in epistemology in South America.

Biography

He was born in Buenos Aires on November 18, 1922, the brother of Argentine filmmaker León Klimovsky. He grew up two blocks from the Obelisk in a cultured family. His parents came from the Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) before the First World War. His father was a watchmaker. His mother, Lluba Wischñevsky, was a teacher and became a school director, Gregorio was the youngest of six brothers. As a child he wanted to be an astronomer, but it was in the Faculty of Engineering that the Spanish mathematician Julio Rey Pastor suggested that he study mathematics. Following his suggestion, he studied mathematics at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), where he became Dean.

He worked as an assistant to Rey Pastor, he came into contact with Philosophy through reading Bertrand Russell, for whom he would feel great admiration throughout his life. Because of reading these works, his interest extended from purely logical issues to epistemological problems and the foundation of scientific knowledge.

Soon after, he studied the works of Rudolf Carnap, and other members of the Vienna Circle, which led him to enthusiastically adhere to the main theses of the philosophy of logical positivism. Mario Bunge introduced him to the works of Karl Popper, undoubtedly the philosopher of science who exerted the greatest influence on his thought.

He was an emeritus professor at that university and director of the Department of Humanities at Favaloro University. As a student and teacher, Klimovsky adhered to the University Reform and has been an active promoter of its principles. Under his impulse, and that of other professors, the Faculty of Exact Sciences of the UBA became, in the fifties and sixties, one of the best research centers in Latin America. In 1966, after the Night of the Long Sticks resigned from the University for the first time, which led him to seek refuge in private classes and in various activities. He was expelled nine times from the University of Buenos Aires for his ethical, educational and political commitments.

As a mathematician, Klimovsky, in collaboration with the mathematician Jorge Bosch, was the main person responsible for introducing axiomatic set theory in Argentina (part of mathematics that tries to provide a rigorously logical foundation for set theory). He was also the initiator of epistemology in Argentina.

However, his work went far beyond the field of mathematics when it began to encompass disciplines such as ethics and the methodology of scientific research. It is then that he begins to be considered -based on his work at the Colegio Libre de Estudios Superiores- as one of the initiators of logic and the Philosophy of Science in Argentina.

Gifted with great charisma and intelligence, he was a teacher much loved by the students who attended his classes. He used to qualify the aridity typical of abstract subjects with unexpected and witty jokes that, uttered in his professorial tone, were very funny to the students and kept them attentive. Very sure of the topics he was dealing with, he never wavered in his long expositions, showing off of a vast memory.

His astonishing diversity of interests, including music, led him to amass a library containing 8,000 volumes. Part of it had been given as a gift to the Jewish Scientific Institute that operated at the AMIA headquarters and was destroyed with the attack.

His position towards disciplines that do not have a great methodological rigor was of a certain tolerance, if compared to others -that of the philosopher of science Mario Bunge, for example.

Trajectory and Recognitions

Opening of Klimovsky Square at the Faculty of Exact Sciences, UBA

He was a professor of mathematics at the National University of Rosario and at the Faculty of Exact Sciences of the UBA; Mathematical Logic at the Center for Advanced Studies in Exact Sciences (CAECE); of Philosophy, Epistemology and Ethics at the Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, (UNAM) and the University of the Republic (Uruguay); professor of mathematics at the "Nicolás Avellaneda" de Rosario, a position in which he succeeded the eminent mathematician Beppo Levi at his proposal.

He taught courses on Logic and Foundations of Mathematics at the University of Concepción (Chile), at the Central University of Caracas (Venezuela) and at the University of the Republic (Uruguay).

He was president of the Torcuato Di Tella Institute, Vice President of the Rio de la Plata Association of Scientific Philosophy and was a member of the Bariloche Foundation and the Argentine Society for Philosophical Analysis (SADAF).

He was a member of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights. At the time of his death, Klimovsky was one of the leading intellectuals for issues related to Argentine scientific policy, the sociology of science, and his philosophy.

He was a member of the Editorial Board of the Secular Judaism magazine.

In 1954 he was appointed Full Professor of Mathematical Analysis at the Faculty of Engineering of the current National University of San Juan and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the National University of Cuyo, directed by the mathematician Mischa Cotlar.

In 1956 and until 1966 he was full-time professor in the Department of Mathematics of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires.

In 1956 and until 1957 he was professor of Logic at the Faculty of Humanities and Arts of the University of Rosario.

In 1957 and until 1966 he was full professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science in the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires.

In 1979 and until 2000 he was a Plenary Professor and directed the Master's Degree in Research Methodology at the University of Belgrano.

In 1984 and until 1985 he was Dean of Normalization at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, then professor of Philosophy and Letters and Social Sciences, and later professor emeritus at the University of Buenos Aires.

In 1984 he was appointed a member of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP).

In 1986 and until 1990 he was a professor at the Latin American Higher School of Informatics (ESLAI)

In 1986 he received the Konex Platinum Award in the area of Logic and Philosophy of Science and three years later the International Psychoanalytic Association Award for the most significant contributions made to this field, for in-depth research on of the epistemological foundation of psychoanalysis.

In 1991 he was a tenured professor at the University Institute of Biomedical Sciences of the Favaloro Foundation, currently Favaloro University.

In 1993 he received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Center for Advanced Studies in Exact Sciences (CAECE).

It is curious that until 1994, when "The Misadventures of Scientific Thought" -which runs out edition after edition- he had never published a book, although his participation in collective works and his articles are very numerous. With this book he undertook the task of addressing the problem of what science is in order to explain it to his UBA students.

Gregorio Klimovsky receives the Konex Prize in 1996

In 1996 he received the Konex de Brillante Award as the most important personality of the Argentine Humanities in the decade 1986-1996. In that same opportunity she obtained the Platinum Konex in Logic and Theory of Science.

In 2003 he received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral.

In 2004 he was declared an illustrious citizen of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.

I'm a porteñozo! I was born two blocks from the Obelisco, in Carlos Pellegrini 629, 4opiso.

Gregorio Klimovsky

In 2005 he received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the National University of Rosario.

In 2006 he received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Buenos Aires.

On December 6, 2019, the "Plaza Gregorio Klimovsky" was inaugurated in front of the stairs of the main entrance of Pavilion 2 of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires.

His photograph is in the Salón de los Científicos Argentinos de la Casa Rosada.

Work

Some of his published works are:

• Zorn theorem and the existence of filters and maximal ideals in distributional reticulates (1958) en Rev. One. Mat. Argentina, 18, pp. 160-164.
• The Structure of Science1978, with Ernest Nagel (Book), Ed. Paid
• The theory of sets and the foundations of mathematics1993 (book), Ed. CAECE
• Mathematical: a philosophical mystery, 1993 (Dissertation on the occasion of receiving Dr. Honoris Causa's inauguration by CAECE University)
• The inventions of scientific knowledge. An introduction to epistemology, 1994, with Guillermo Boido (book), A-Z Editor
• The inventions of mathematical knowledge. Mathematical Philosophy: An Introduction, 2005, with Guillermo Boido (book)
• Discovery and creativity in science, (2000), co-authoring with Félix Gustavo Schuster
• The inexplicable society1998 with Cecilia Hidalgo
• Epistemology and Psychoanalysis 1. Analysis of psychoanalysis2004, Biebel Editions.
• Epistemology and Psychoanalysis 2. Analysis of psychoanalysis, 2004 (book), Editions Biebel.
• My Diverse Existence, 2008, A-Z Editora.

Awards

• Brillante Konex Award in 1996 that consecrated him as the most important personality of the Argentine Humanities of the 1986-1995 decade. At the same time he obtained the Konex of Platinum in Logic and Theory of Science.
• Konex Prize for Platinum - Logical and Philosophy of Science (1986)
• International Psychoanalytic Association Award (1989)
• Doctor Honoris Causa de la Universidad CAECE (1993)
• Doctor Honoris Causa de la Universidad Nacional del Litoral (2003)
• Illustrative Citizen of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (2004)
• Doctor Honoris Causa de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (2006)