Abstract

Ernst Mach was one of the great philosopher-scientists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was among the first to deal systematically with the contribution that the history and philosophy of science can make to science education. His teaching was the occasion to unite pedagogical, psychological, philosophical and scientific concerns. His ideas on education are scattered throughout his books, textbooks and journal articles. However, there are three lectures where he explicitly addressed pedagogical issues. – ‘On Instruction in the Classics and the Mathematico-Physical Sciences’, ‘On Instruction in Heat Theory’, and ‘On the Psychological and Logical Moment in Scientific Instruction’. As well as intellectual and practical interests in education, Mach had a notable Enlightenment-inspired political involvement in educational reform. Mach’s relative neglect by English-speaking science educators is unfortunate.