Some aspects of the underlying conceptualizations (as opposed to experimental methodologies or mathematical algorithms) in soil water physics are reviewed. Contemporary issues relating to the symmetry properties of the Richards Equation, the status of the energy picture of soil water, and the theoretical description of coupled heat and water flows in soil are raised to exemplify as yet unresolved problems in the “physics” of soil water physics. Four basic questions which formalize these problems are posed as suggestions for future resea