Georg Unger's book, Forming Concepts in Physics, is a seminal study of the conceptual foundations of modern science of quantum mechanics, probability and relativity theory, and mathematics. Central to the book is an examination of the role of thinking in gaining physical knowledge. Unger focuses on the transition from classical to modern physics to suggest what will be a radical shift in consciousness for most readers. Unger shows that, far from passive observing, scientists employ active thinking to gain access to the world of phenomena. In other words, seeing employs thinking in order to organize sense data into coherent experience. Reality is in this coherent experience of phenomena and does not lie in a metaphysical world behind experience. In this phenomenological analysis, thought is taken to bring reality to existence within human beings.

In a careful and insightful analysis, Unger discusses in detail what actually happened in the transition to Twentieth Century physics. Of particular importance in this regard is Unger's treatment of the concept of matter. Unger formulates the concept of matter as the togetherness or simultaneous appearance of sense qualities. It follows from such an understanding that the boundaries of sense reality are reached when the condition of such togetherness is no longer present. The failure of classical ideas is unavoidable in the face of the "non-togetherness" that is characteristic of quantum phenomena. One of the beauties of Unger's approach is that we can understand the so-called paradoxical nature of pseudo-realistic elements such as the atom or other fundamental particles as an artifact of forgetting the role of thinking when we gain coherence of sense reality. Once it is realized that the boundary of the sense perceptible has been crossed, then the supposed paradoxical nature of the fundamental particles disappears, and other paradoxes such as wave particle duality make sense.

Unger takes special note of the role of statistics in quantum theory. He devotes a chapter to a detailed discussion of the mathematical concept of probability, and concludes that fundamentally statistical phenomena point to something other than a classically describable system. In his final chapter Unger returns to this idea. This final chapter, titled "Physical World View and Spiritual Science," is a radical departure from the previous approach of the book. Here, instead of a philosophical/historical analysis of modern physics but nevertheless based on it, Unger imagines how the facts of the so-called micro-world might be differently described if the self-limitation of physics (based on ignorance of the role of thinking) were removed. Here he discusses how the "fundamentally statistical phenomena" of modern physics might be interpreted in terms of sensible effects of supersensible spiritual beings acting across the boundary of the sense perceptible. Unger uses Rudolf Steiner's description of a supersensible world for his examples, but his ideas need not be limited to the particulars of Steiner's description of a spiritual world.

Forming Concepts in Physics is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in understanding the epistomological ground of modern science. It will be of special interest to anyone who wishes to move beyond the habitual assumptions of reductionism and quasimaterialism.

Jay Kappraff
Department of Mathematics
New Jersey Institute of Technology
University Heights
Newark, NJ 07102-1982

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