Vistas in Physical Reality: Festschrift for Henry Margenau ed. by Ervin Laszlo and Emily B. Sellon (review)

Leonardo, Vol. 1I, pp. 153-171. Pergamon Press 1978. Printed in Great Britain BOOKS Readers are invited to recommend books to be reviewed. In general, only books in English and in French can be reviewed at this stage. Those who would like to be added to Leonardo’s panel of reviewers should write to the FounderEditor . indicating their particular interests. Vistas in PhysicalReality: Festschrift for Henry Margenau. Ervin Laszlo and Emily B. Sellon, eds. Plenum, ,New York and London, 1976. 228 pp., illus. $30.00 Reviewed by James A. Goldman* Having reached his 75th year, Henry Margenau is certainly deserving of a publication of essays in his honor. His own publications span a half century. While at Yale University, Margenau earned a reputation as a distinguished physicist, philosopher and educator. The contents of this collection have accordingly been divided into three sections that are reflectiveof these corresponding areas of interest. Of the five essays in the first section, devoted to physics, three of the articles are mathematical and highly technical but the other two are apt to be more accessible to the readers of Leonardo. Eugene Wigner, the Nobelist physicist and professor emeritus at Princeton University, for some time has been concerned with issues that range beyond the narrowly scientific problems of modern physics. He is troubled by the lack of communication among the sciences.For example, the highly specializedconcepts and terminology of quantum physics are comprehended with difficulty by most physicists who are not doing research in particle physics. As a general partial remedy, Wigner proposes that scientists be encouraged to write more review-type articles. Another matter of concern to Wigner is recognition of the purpose of physics research. The immense pleasure that frequently accompanies the increased understanding of nature and the goal of usingscientificknowledgefor the improvement of human life were motives that at one time were unquestioned. This is no longer so. Indeed it seems that a highly scientificand technological society even provides disincentives to the growth rate of science that has been experienced, say, in the past four centuries. There will alwaysbe problems strictly in the domain of physics to be solved. As more is learned about cosmology in terms of the ‘Big Bang’ hypothesis of the origin of the universe, other problems will emerge.Thedanger is not that there will be a dearth of problems in this subject but that humans will get tired of them! R. Bruce Lindsay, in the other article, in an exemplary manner of writingfor the nonspecialist, argues that acoustics isnot only a legitimate science but also a technology and an art. The second section contains six essays dealing with philosophy. Here again, the majority of them are not easily understood unless one possesses some familiarity with the philosophical issuesthat derive from contemporary physics, e.g. instrumentalism, duality and subjectivism. Likely to be of more interest to Leonardo’s readers is Yourgrau’s contention that there is not a philosophy of science but rather a philosophy of physics, a philosophy of biology, a philosophy of the social sciences, etc. The generally most provocative article is Lee Thayer’s The Functions of Incompetence, a serious argument that in complex societies increasing specialization and professionalization lead to a socially dangerous disparity between those who can do or know things that a complex, *Div. of Continuing Education and Extension Services, New York City Community College, City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY 11201, U S A . affluent society values and the others whose existence is irrelevant to the functioning of the society. In the last section, on education, there are only two essays. Harold Cassidy, who like Margenau, has concerned himselfwith the relations between the sciences and the humanities [The Sciences and the Arts: A New Alliance (New York: Harpers, l962)] describes Margenau’s philosophy of education, which encompasses the arts and humanities as well as the sciences.The concluding essay by Sellon is concerned with Margenau’s concept of ‘integrative education’ which attempts to restore the sciencesto being part of the liberal arts, yet acknowledging that the sciences and the humanities represent two authentic but different modes of knowing. Of all the essays,those by Cassidyand Sellon,each ten pagesin length, are apt...