The Nature of Physical Reality: A Philosophy of Modern Physics by Henry Margenau (review)

Laonardo. Vol. 13, pp 7&84 Pergamon Press, 1980. 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 theirparticular interests. TheNatureof Physical Reality:A Philosophy of ModernPhysics. Henry Margenau. Ox Bow Press, Woodbridge, Conn., 1977. 479pp. Paper, $12.00.Reviewed by Grace Marmor Spruch* The author of thisbook isin distinguished company in writing on the philosophy of physics. Scientists such as Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr wereconcerned with the characteristics ofrealitytheir work helped to interpret. Margenau has written a number of books. One, Mathematics of Physics and Chemistry, coauthored with G .M. Murphy, was used extensivelyby generations of sciencestudents in the U.S.A., who referred to the book simplyas ‘Margenauand Murphy’. It is said that when Margenau visited Japan he was addressed as Mr. Murphy. Oncorrecting the speaker with ‘Margenau’,he was told that proper respect prohibited theuseofhisfist name. I offerthis story here to attest to the reputation of the author. The book under review was originally published in 1950and has been reprinted without change, which probably attests to the stability of the author’s philosophical thought, for, as he himself admits in the Preface, he doubts that he would allow his scientific papers to be republished without revision. The book is written with clarity and style, and the pedagogue in the professor has included at the end of each chapter a summary that gives the essenceof difficult and involved material. This said, I must add that thisbook isnot for educated laymen and educated artistswho wish tograspthe present understanding of thecharacteristicsof physicalreality. It iswritten for physicists who know some philosophy and philosophers who know a good deal of physics. These two groups will profit from Margenau’s forcing them to examine concepts-tools of their tradeordinarily left unexamined. As for anyone else, he or she had better seek such understanding elsewhere. Magic, Science, and Civilization. Jacob Bronowski. Columbia Univ. Press, 1978. 88 pp. $8.70.Reviewed by R. F. Erickson** One of the difficultieswith this small book is that the author has attempted to conduct readers along a number of paths of thought, and, even though he wished to combine them into one theme, the effort was not successful. The essays are based on Bronowski’sBampton Lectures at Columbia University, and it is quite obvious that the lectures were designed to amuse the audience as well as present the speaker’s somewhat dogmatic propositions. Numerous insertions of literary quotations and lengthy, digressive comments about Nazi concentration camps and Ficino at the Platonic Academy have seriously diluted the important issues that Bronowski was trying to urge on his audience. In the first essay, Interpretations of Nature, Bronowski’splea isfora unitary viewof theworld. the search for which isa ‘unique endeavor’ in the history of mankind. Because humans among *I4East 8th Street. New York, NY 10003,U S A . **Historical Studies, School of Social Studies, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL 62025,U.S.A. living creatures are the only speciescapable of making plans, it follows that science,which contains only ‘one form of truth’, is the only avenue by which the unitary view can be achieved. The author’s important supporting statement for this idea is that ‘scienceis a world view based on the notion that we can plan by understanding’. The second essay, Black Magic and White Magic, is the author’s search for the historical moment at which what he describes as the dominant theme in intellectual culture was altered. The third essay, The Strategy of ScientificKnowledge , discusses the questions of how science works and what scientificexplanations are. The concluding part, Human Plans and Civilized Values, is a roundabout formulation of an argument for the understanding of human values, and it is difficult to state definitively what Bronowski is suggesting. The words ‘plans’and ‘values’abound in thisessay,but why scienceis supposed to aid us in establishing a ‘unitary senseof the human situation’ isunclear. It is, of course, more readily understandable ifone agrees with his earlier propositions that most knowledgeis knowledge from science...