Sage Publications (www.sagepublications.

com) Public Understanding of Science

Public Understand. Sci. 19(3) (2010) 293–310

The Mach–Planck debate revisited: democratization

of science or elite knowledge?
Hayo Siemsen

Is scientific knowledge the domain of the intellectual elite or is it everyman’s

concern, thus making the popularization of science a democratic activity inte-
grally required of science itself? This is a question whose history extends back
even longer than the enlightenment period. As technology starts to permeate
every inch of daily life, the issues involved for our future development become
more pressing and a matter of socio-political development. Dostoyevsky brought
this to the point in a fictional dispute between a Great Inquisitor and Christ. This
was also the subject of fierce scientific debates, the most prominent of which
was probably the debate between Ernst Mach and Max Planck at the turn of the
century, before the first world war, when the new Physics (quantum theory and
relativity) was discovered and its relevance for our view of the world and our
place in it was hotly discussed. For Mach, the job of popularization should
rest with science - an informed public cannot be manipulated as easily by ‘pop
science’. This article focuses on the mostly neglected political epistemological
level of the debate, its sporadic later flare-ups in different places with different
protagonists (Wagenschein, Wittenberg), and its relevance for the popularization
of science today.

1. Introduction

According to Ernst Mach (1838–1916, physicist and philosopher of science, credited for
bringing down Newtonian physics by questioning Newton’s postulate of absolute and inde-
pendent space and time), popularization is integral to science and its growth (1866: 2–3):
Throughout history knowledge1 has always consisted of several parts: one part is wide-
spread, popular, as it is commonly used. A second part is recorded in the scientific lit-
erature and so only accessible to the scholars. A third part exists in the minds of scholars,
their so-called ‘private property’, before it dares to venture out into the public and into
the literature. … Once a part of science belongs to the literature, a second task remains,
which is to popularize it, if possible. This second task also has its importance, but it is a
difficult one. It has its importance, because – regardless of the distribution of knowledge
that increases its value – it is not unimportant for the further development of science itself
how much knowledge has been disseminated into the public. The difficulty is to know
the soil very well in which one wants to plant the knowledge.

© 2009 SAGE Publications ISSN 0963-6625 DOI: 10.1177/0963662507335525

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294   Public Understanding of Science 19(3)

It is a prevalent but wrong opinion that children are not able to form precise concepts and come
to the right conclusions. The child is often more sensible than the teacher. The child is very
well able to comprehend, if one does not offer too much new at a time, but properly connects
the new to the old. The adult is a child when facing the completely new. Even the scholar is a
child when confronted with a foreign subject. The child is a child everywhere, as everything is
new to him. The art of popularization lies in avoiding too much of the new at one time.

According to Mach, as popularization aims at the public (or, in the case of the child, at the
public of tomorrow), public understanding is a result of popularization and can therefore be
used as a measure for it. What is not specifically emphasized by Mach here, but which
became a key issue in his debate with Planck:2 especially in democracies, public understand-
ing of science can be a political issue and as such also a target of political manipulation (see
for instance Gasset [1932] for an early analysis of this phenomenon). In science itself it may
happen that political issues are disguised as epistemological ones, in which case they become
concealed, as this article will argue.
Mach’s epistemology is based on the assumption that Darwin’s Origin of Species did not
only have biological implications, but also epistemological ones. These implications were
first elaborated by Mach (for details see Siemsen and Siemsen, 2009) before Haeckel and
Darwin wrote on the topic.
What Mach had seemingly underestimated was the fierceness of the political fight which
is still covertly raging over this issue today. The battle over Creationism being taught in schools
or not is prominent proof. However, I will discuss another aspect about which the main philo-
sophical decisions were made some thousands of years ago and which still has important
political implications. Pierre Duhem (1908/1996) commented on this for science in general in
his “Sozein Ta Phainomena”3 but here I will only focus on the educational implications. Mach
is unfortunately by now mostly unknown from the educational side4 and from the science
education politics perspective. Therefore a rediscovery of his ideas seems to be necessary.
This article comprises five parts: The first focuses on the historical aspects of the Mach–
Planck debate and the second explains the political perspectives. The third part is about the
epistemological questions at stake. The fourth shows the universality of the problem with the
examples of Wagenschein (Germany) and Wittenberg (Canada). Finally, the current implica-
tions will be discussed. Since Mach is often misinterpreted and only partly understood, I will
first give some general background on Mach’s epistemology.

2. A fictional and a real dispute

In a tale in “The Brothers Karamazov,” Dostoyevsky (1880/2003) confronts a fictional Great

Inquisitor with Christ. The Great Inquisitor comes to see Christ in the prison in which he
keeps him locked. He defends his deeds by claiming that he acts for the good of humanity.
As humans are too weak and rebellious to endure the freedom Jesus offers them, a privy elite
has to show them the way and thereby deliver “happiness to mankind”. Humans fear free-
dom and mystify knowledge inexplicable to them. It is human nature that bread comes
before virtue5 and freedom. Worship of material idols is more attractive than the “agonizing”
freedom of thought. Only a very few are able to find transcending enlightenment. The major-
ity of mankind just seeks to follow a shepherd leading them to a goal in life instead of
searching for their own way. The tale ends with Jesus (absolutely unresponsive during the
conversation) kissing the Great Inquisitor, who sets him free, but only if he accepts the
obligation to never return.

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 Siemsen: The Mach-Planck debate revised   295

With the Great Inquisitor, Dostoyevsky designed an archetypal character representing the
political aspects not only of religion, but also of science. He is a character of whom individual
aspects may be found more commonly than we might think. The Great Inquisitor implicitly
presumes the end of history. His interpretation of the world is a final one. This position is not
rare in a culture with an eschatological concept of time, such as the Judaic-Christian one, as
opposed to a cyclical concept of time such as can be found, for instance, in various religions
of Indian origin.
The Great Inquisitor’s assumption is that he is in the just-before-final “apocalypse” stage
(see Eliade, 1976/2002). The knowledge process has come to an end, the rest are mere details.
Such a view rests on two assumptions: (1) knowledge is initiatory;6 the inquisitor and his
colleagues already know everything important one can know about humans, and what the
average human can learn; (2) as the initiated elite already knows everything (God’s knowl-
edge), they can also assume the role of God. So, according to the Inquisitor, history has
already reached its final state and, contrary to the Bible, the final state is an oligarchy of
knowledgeable men who rule the kingdom of God. Such claims for the end of history have a
long tradition, going back to apocalyptic writings (Eliade, 1976/2002), and recurring fre-
quently in science (see Avenarius, 1891; Duhem, 1908/1996).
A debate took place not too long (in 1908) after Dostoyevsky’s novel was first published,
between two distinguished scientists: Ernst Mach and Max Planck. This debate has often been
seen as a scientific dispute about results of research and methods to obtain them. However, on
a more intuitive, fundamental level – that of the “scientific subconscious” – the debate had more
fundamental epistemological and political implications as well, analogous to the Great Inquisitor
story. Duhem (1908/1996: 146) called this the “clash of two realist positions” in his analysis of
the positions of the Copernicans and the Church. I will argue here that the main difference
between Mach and Planck lies in their conception of the properties of knowledge: is knowledge
initiatory or adaptive? Can we in science ever claim to ultimately know “God’s thoughts” or do
we need to confine our role to describing the phenomena? This aspect of the Mach-Planck
debate has mostly been overlooked, as it requires a detailed understanding of the characters
involved and the issues at stake. In the following, I will briefly discuss the background of the
dispute, before exploring its philosophical, educational and political dimensions.
For most of his scientific career, Mach was a professor of physics in Prague. His work
evolved around the question of what Darwin’s theory means for human knowledge and our
understanding of the “world”. For this, he primarily focused on the human senses.7 He pro-
posed that our perceptions are made up of the fundamental physiological and psychological
elements of our senses (sensualism) including their physical basis (psychophysics). From his
empirical observations, he found no consistent epistemic “cut” possible between physics,
physiology and psychology. Therefore, our intuitive concepts of physics, physiology and
psychology would need to be adapted, so that these would only be considered different views
of fundamentally one relation.
Mach was later offered a chair at the University of Vienna for the philosophy and history
of the inductive sciences,8 which was created especially for him. His successors to the chair
were Ludwig Boltzmann and Moritz Schlick. Mach is known for his fundamental critique of
Newtonian mechanics (which was central to the development of the “new physics”, quantum
mechanics and relativity theory) and for his philosophy of science. He was a source of inspira-
tion for key scientists of many different disciplines, such as Einstein, James, Schumpeter,
Georgescu-Roegen, Hayek, Wittgenstein, Feyerabend, the gestalt and behavioural psycholo-
gists, among others.9 He is also regarded as the intellectual founding father of the Vienna Circle
which organized its public activities in the “Verein Ernst Mach”. At the time of the dispute,
Mach was already 70 years old and severely impaired by a stroke he had suffered from.

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296   Public Understanding of Science 19(3)

Max Planck was one of the front-runners of the new physics, together with Einstein,
Bohr, Heisenberg and others. He is especially known for finding Planck’s constant which is
still one of the main pillars of quantum theory. Later, he held leading positions in the Prussian
Academy of Science, the German Physical Society and the Kaiser-Wilhelm Society,10 through
which he had a major influence over the development of science in Germany.
Originally having revered Mach as his teacher11 and even corresponding with him, asking
for his opinion (Blackmore and Hentschel, 1985: 59), Planck suddenly started attacking Mach
in public (Planck, 1908/1988a). His central argument was the rejection of Mach’s insistence
on human perceptions as the point of origin of all scientific enquiry and theory. Instead he
proposed a “realism” based on the unchanging constants of nature, thereby creating a constant
world view. In Planck’s epistemology, this new view would be independent of time and cul-
ture, even “to be shared by a Martian” (Planck, 1908/1988a: 311). This would replace the
“economy of thought” principle12 which Mach had proposed as the epistemological principle
shaping an adaptive process of learning on which the current and any future scientific para-
digms could be based. Planck concluded his attack on what he called “Mach’s school of
thought” with the biblical allusion to false prophets: “by their fruits ye shall know them”.
Why did Planck attack Mach? Was it really about Mach’s incompatibility with a physical
scientific world view? Planck seemingly had a mistaken perception of Mach’s epistemology
when stating that perceptions were the only reality for Mach (see for example Feyerabend,
1987). In his favour it can be argued that he shared this misconception with many others who,
for instance, understood Mach as a phenomenologist.13 Mach clarified this in a reply to
Planck as well as to other “contemporaries” (in 1910, Mach, 1910/1919b). In Duhem’s terms,
with this he would have been one of the other type of realists, that is, the non-Copernicans
(although Mach would probably not have described himself as a realist; depending on the
definition of the term, this could well imply belief in a Kantian thing-in-itself; instead he was
a sensualist). Mach explained that, contrary to Berkeley, he believed in a reality outside of our
perceptions, but that we can know this reality only indirectly through our perceptions (Mach,
1910/1919b: 12).14 Phenomena are thereby only results of sensual perceptions. We can
describe those results and even the process, but not its origin without the process. Furthermore,
a genetic approach has phenomenological elements, but its guiding principle is evolution, and
especially the evolution of understanding based on empirical concept formation. Theory and
empiry inherently have a double-dependency on each other.15 This double-dependency is an
integral part of these concepts. They cannot be consistently understood without it.
Like Avenarius in his concept of introjection (1891), Mach rejected the notion that we
can ever know “true” reality, particularly not by exclusively taking on the point of view of
physics without including the psychophysiology of the observer. While Newton’s physical
world view depends on the abstraction from the observer, the Machian observer is an integral
part of the system and any experiment therein. This perspective became the foundation of the
new physical world views of quantum mechanics as well as relativity theory. Planck was part
of this revolution, but in his defence of observer-independent systems, according to Heilbron
(1988) he subconsciously keeps the Newtonian world view on the meta level.
Because of the centrality of the observer and his or her understanding, Mach also criti-
cized physics which could not be made experiencable. He criticized atom theory and relativity
theory, because those theories for him were hypothetical, i.e. not accessible enough to our
senses through phenomena and experiments.16 Without feedback from such current experi-
ences we are constantly and easily in danger of using principles from former experiences17 and
thus form potentially faulty theories. It may be difficult to subsequently purge those from such
initial mistakes (Heller, 1964).18 This is the basis of Mach’s famous anti-metaphysical stand.

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 Siemsen: The Mach-Planck debate revised   297

We constantly need to review our concepts for thought economy and adapt our concepts to the
facts and to each other. It is a twofold activity: first it must be done for the current theory and
then also for its genetic construction. Teaching “redundant” concepts (from the perspective of
the latest theory) might be necessary for providing integral crutches in learning.19
Ivan tells the story of the Great Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov. Both Planck and
Ivan are straightforward and proud of being decided. They seemingly base their decisions on
rational arguments (tacitly implying the Copernicans’ type of rationality), but, I argue that
they intuitively assume nevertheless an implicit and fundamentally mystical attitude as one
of the axioms of these arguments.20 As their knowledge is thus non-adaptive (because “god-
given” rationality is teleological and cannot be improved upon), they advocate unity by
political backroom deals, and not by a cognitive adaptation process (see also Heilbron,
1988).21 Planck can be seen as an embodiment of such a “grey eminence”, a typical German
political personality in science. Alexander Israel Wittenberg brought it to the point (1963a/1990:
107) in his Nazi-caused exile – first to Switzerland, then Canada – when looking back at
German education:
There are two types of doing geometry – the one “propaedeutic”, not to be taken entirely
serious, not binding, childishly playful; the other “scientific” (that is more or less axio-
matic and deductively organized). The latter includes all the lordly and awe-inspiring
undertones, the privy-councillor and Olympus taste which this word has for the one
whose superstition or unfulfilled desire is called “science”.22
As Wittenberg noted, this approach to geometry and to science in general is inherently
undemocratic and tacitly oriented towards a Hegelian “people-as-mass” concept (the absolute
mind/spirit – “absoluter Geist” – the aspect for which Popper most criticized Hegel), instead
of towards the personal mind/spirit. The Great Inquisitor inherently professes the same
concept regarding people.
Mach, on the contrary, saw the individual propaedeutic approach to science as essential.
This approach starts psychologically from everybody’s “folk” concepts, even in the case of
scholars who still might be without experience in the fields in question (like children in
Mach’s view). With this he takes a rather pragmatic and individualistic approach to science
(see Stadler, 1988). This pragmatic side of Mach becomes obvious, for example, in his friend-
ship with William James and his influence on Pragmatism in general (see Holton, 1992). For
Mach, there cannot be just one single “right” way, found by majority decision, prescribed and
binding for all.
Contrary to many opinions on Mach, he was not against a religious view of the world (he
sometimes described his own ethics as Buddhistic), but against any “clericalism” prescribing
what one has to believe, be it in church or in science. And thus the culmination in the Mach–
Planck argument, rattling many contemporaries, was Mach’s provocative claim: If physics
became dogmatic like a fundamentalist religion with its followers permitting only one view,
he would leave this “church of physics” (Mach, 1910/1919b: 11–12).23

3. Similarities

In what sense might the Great Inquisitor and the Mach–Planck debates be similar? On the one
hand, a psychological type of teacher–pupil relationship exists in both cases. The pupil eventu-
ally seems to stage an intellectual revolt against his former teacher. On the other hand, for a
scientific debate the Mach–Planck dispute had a strangely religious character. Both scientists

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298   Public Understanding of Science 19(3)

used biblical metaphors in order to radicalize and underline their cases. The analogy becomes
more obvious when the Mach–Planck debate is seen from another perspective.
At first sight the debate might seem like a “normal” scientific dispute over iota and com-
mas. But Mach had a specific reason for questioning the “orthodox” Newtonian mechanics.
He did not just challenge the mechanistic paradigm of his time because he found some faults
in it, nor did he provide a ready solution for the problem. Instead, his questions are epistemo-
logical in nature, similar to those that Socrates asked in order to highlight the inconsistencies
and superficiality of the ideas and motives of his contemporaries.24 Mach suggested question-
ing those concepts and ideas especially that seem to have become unshakable scientific insti-
tutions. By becoming institutionalized, they inherently carry the danger of being accepted as
unshakable truths. As such they might hinder ongoing scientific progress.25
Asking questions about fundamental scientific assumptions might include, for example,
enquiring about the origin of our concepts, our knowledge, or the goals of science. Such funda-
mental questions are not satisfied with a direct answer, but will continue nagging at us subcon-
sciously.26 And they might continue doing so until we consciously repress and ban them into an
unconscious prison in some remote area in our brain, since otherwise we would finally have to
start questioning our fundamental intuitions regarding the subject. Some conceptual gestalts
gain in stability the older we get. In a Hume-type learning process we have found them empir-
ically “confirmed” so many times. We already stopped calling them into question long ago.
Meaning is thus initially formed by repetition more than by insight, especially in areas too new
to judge. Fundamental concepts belong to this category, especially for scientists who make daily
use of them. The origins of fundamental concepts, such as for instance “theory of mind” are
formed in early childhood and later rarely change fundamentally (unless one is confronted with
empirical evidence clearly contradicting it, mostly to be obtained only in very specific experi-
ments outside of daily experience). Changing them tends to evoke strong emotional resistance.
This is exactly the type of questions Mach asks. Like a child asking an innocent but deeply dif-
ficult question about the fundamentals of our lives. We can usually silence a child by dismissing
the question as stupid. Experienced Socratians might be less easy to satisfy.
If a priori we define our epistemological basis too narrowly, we will never think of ask-
ing certain questions, let alone answering them. This is the epistemological mistake of
Planck’s and the Great Inquisitor’s position, and this is the fundamental difficulty Dostoyevsky’s
Ivan is struggling with: their rational realism can only describe a “homo economicus”-type of
scientific thinking. It is a simplified model, like looking at a stream of water and trying to
describe the currents by watching the surface. The currents close to the surface might be
recognizable, but this does not necessarily allow inferences about the currents further down,
nor then about the total flow rate. Approximations of the model to the overall flow will some-
times be good and at other times far from the factual rate, without the reason for such varia-
tions becoming apparent. Even worse, because of psychological reasons, one will tend to
overlook any discrepancies as negligible (anomalies), instead of submitting them to scientific
scrutiny. Rational realism is therefore unable to properly handle modes of thought that are
inherently too far off this rational “description”27 of thought, for instance intuitive gestalt-
based creativity (see Lorenz, 1959/1968).
When sensational elements (basic perceptions) are defined as physical as well as psychi-
cal phenomena, they form a relational bridge between the “reality” of the world and the
psychological construction of the “self” (in Mach’s epistemology). Perceptions originate in
physical phenomena, but are channelled by the physiological function of the senses and a
mental interpretation based on prior experience. The final result of this is a function of reality.
We can only approximate this function and thereby approximate reality, but we can never

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 Siemsen: The Mach-Planck debate revised   299

claim to “know” it in an absolute sense. Thus, the mind/matter duality does not exist for Mach
(it is a metaphysical pseudoproblem). Mind and matter form a relation, a function between
the physical and the psychical. As we cannot know anything but these functions, for Mach
everything is psychophysical (see also Stadler, 1988). From this perspective, he has to reject
any purely physical interpretation of the world such as Planck’s, as well as any purely ideal-
istic one.28 Instead, he wants us to constantly question our fundamental understanding of both
sides by learning more about their relation. As Otto Neurath described it in an analogy: sci-
ence is like a boat, the planks of which we constantly have to replace while navigating on the
open sea. Mach would probably have added that also we should look deep down to the bottom
of the captain’s chest in order to find out why and how the boat was built in the first place.

4. How can we answer Socratic questions?

The answers given by the younger physicists about the relativity of time and space did not
satisfy Mach. He wanted more. He not only questioned the fundamentals of Newtonian
mechanics, but also the very fundamentals of our existence and what they meant for the lim-
its of human knowledge; especially scientific enquiry. What can we really know, and how?
This question was neither answered by Planck nor by Einstein. Bohr, Heisenberg and Pauli29
probably came closest by showing the fundamental subjectivity of all observation, by inter-
preting the duality of light as particle and wave as a “matter of perspectives” on the same
phenomenon (Heisenberg, 1969).30 Consequently, the concept of “phenomenon” has no
meaning without describing the experimental setup and the method of observation. In Mach’s
sense, even the observing scientist as a human being with his psychology, his (biological)
senses and learned (scientific) culture and concepts, has to be included in this definition (e.g.
the method of observation depends on the method the observing scientist learnt within the
paradigm he grew up in). Additionally, our perceptions (consisting of sense elements) are the
only facts we really know, although they are the most solipsistic element of our knowledge,
which we cannot share directly. The more we abstract from them, the less we consider them
empirically. The greater therefore is the danger of drifting into metaphysical irrelevance. If
we do not constantly test our hypotheses and theories against reality using the stream of our
experience (also unconscious experience), we might not notice our futile attempts when try-
ing to row our boat on the sometimes dry, rocky riverbed of our theoretical mental models.31
Yet many of the young physicists were not focussed in their research on the epistemo-
logical dimension of the questions. They often did not even notice that Mach’s questions had
several dimensions. So they became frustrated with Mach’s criticism, as they did not under-
stand his epistemological intention and interpreted Mach’s stubbornness as senility.

5. Popular Science contra Pop Science

Now one might ask what a century-old scientific debate can tell us about science populariza-
tion and its results. Quite a lot, I would argue. Mach was a strong advocate of popularizing
science. One of his books is even entitled Popular Scientific Lectures (1893/1986). His
popular articles did not derive from scientific philanthropy, but are a direct result of his
scientific philosophy. It is not by chance that many of his direct and indirect followers have
developed a focus on education (James, Pauli, Karl Menger, Freudenthal, Neurath, etc.).
Machian epistemology results in two central arguments for the popularization of science.

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First, Mach’s psychophysical deconstruction of the self lets him reject the elitist oligo-
centric view on society (which is inherently anthropomorphic, taking their own culturally
developed concept of self as its tacit reference point, calling it “universal”), the “I/we know
better”. Instead, the dissolution of self-centred conceptual dimensions leads him to transcend
these barriers. When the self is transcended, it becomes an integral part of society and history,
which – as Paul Carus wrote to Mach (Mach, 1885/1919a: 291) – is a point of view relatively
close to Buddhism. The greatest challenge in human development, according to Mach, is to
optimize32 the transmission process in our cultural evolution (and science as an integral part
of it). Therefore, learning and teaching science to everybody with the goal of broad and gen-
eral understanding of it in public has to be a central part of science itself. Translating an idea
into its general genetic process is equally difficult as finding it in the first place.
Are Mach’s Popular Scientific Lectures33 outdated? Surprisingly, they are not. In fact they
are currently being rediscovered. They play a role in recent publications in journals (see Euler,
2006) and even in the debate about the OECD PISA study, in which different countries’ children
are empirically compared on the application of their scientific knowledge to day-to-day prob-
lems. Why are these lectures still regarded as modern? Because at the intuitive level, the learn-
ing processes themselves do not age as fast as the latest factual knowledge.
Second, science in Mach’s view is a continuation of human development by new means
(Mach, 1897/1959). It is the result of an effective application of the “economy of thought”.
The crucial part of human cultural genesis is to successfully transmit principles (by means of
an optimal learning process) to which this optimization has been applied (and so focussing
on the essential, but also not cutting them away). The spreading of knowledge, and especially
general knowledge, is a central question for human society as a whole.34 Public understanding
of science is not a side issue, but a central issue of science itself, as well as of society, and
one with which Mach was very concerned.
There is ample opportunity in our societies to see that such aims have not been achieved
(Arons, 1997; Wagenschein, 1968b/1997). Instead we have a
… split in society into a thin and isolated layer of experts, whose doings and results
remain cryptic in their essence, compared to the superficially informed, but not really
understanding majority of people, who are either scientifically sceptic or – which is not
better – scientifically devout, instead of becoming scientifically understanding.35
Our science education often fails in the task of popularization or even basic transmission.
Many of the scientific concepts taught are soon forgotten or are misunderstood. This can
easily be tested by interviewing people (of any age, and even with a higher educational
background) about their explanations for different, seemingly simple “daily-experience”-
oriented scientific questions, which they supposedly should have learned about at school;36
questions such as: Why can we be so sure that the earth is rotating? Why do people standing
in water seem to have shorter legs? Is there actually something “flowing” in electric wires?
How is a rocket propelled? How can the moon as a sphere look like a sickle? Why does the
moon seem to stand still, even if we watch it from a fast-moving car? Many people (includ-
ing TV journalists), for instance, believe that astronauts “leave” earth’s gravitational field.
Or they believe that the crescent of the moon is caused by the shadow of the earth falling on
its surface. The latter probably derives from the apparently very intuitive demonstration of
lunar eclipses, which many teachers used in classroom experiments: taking a light source
and round objects of different sizes, for instance a flashlight (sun), an orange (earth) and a
golf ball (moon), for visualization. Against this, the teaching about the origin of moon cycle
phenomena was seemingly less intuitive and therefore forgotten (Wagenschein, 1970b). This

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is unfortunate, especially because lunar eclipses had a high scientific importance in the his-
tory of astronomy. They were observational evidence for Aristotle (and for Kepler rediscov-
ering Aristotle) that the earth is round. As the shadow on the moon is always exactly circular,
regardless of the position of the moon at the time of different eclipses, Aristotle (and later
Kepler) deduced that the earth should be circular in three dimensions and even unsupported,
like a levitating sphere.37 Reproducing such historical lines of intellectual discovery would
probably be enlightening in the attempt to understand physics.
Counterintuitive fundamental gestalt shifts are mentally difficult. Why? They psycho-
logically cause emotional rejection. In a Humean learning process, each time we confirm a
hypothesis (even if it is only tacit on the intuitive level), its mental heuristics gain emotional
weight.38 Due to this emotional charge we can make fast decisions based on our intuition (see
for example Damasio, 2003). But if we see a white raven after a thousand black ones, we are
puzzled. After forming our initial theory of mind – say when we were about five years old
(see Bransford et al., 1999) – how many times will we have found it “confirmed” by the age
of 30, 50 or 60 years (especially if we are scientists concerned with the concept in question)?
A million times? And what happens then if somebody questions one of our fundamental
concepts, such as “mind”? Most experienced (i.e. often older) scholars would emotionally
reject it and rationalize their arguments for this rejection retrospectively, without fundamen-
tally questioning their own concept, nor admitting that their seemingly rational arguments are
inherently emotional. Questioning the concept will only be successful with scholars who
have themselves already experienced nagging doubts, or young scholars who are still less
emotionally biased.
Additionally, popularizing science translates into research to systematically explore the
economy of the genetic process of learning; economy here is not a type of fast-lane, one-way
street, temporarily used and destroyed afterwards, but is a (largely subconscious) process of
understanding. This process leads from the haptic, or enactive, via ikonic to symbolic repre-
sentations, with analogical bridging, often restarting from the enactive level (as in Bruner,
1974). It has to be exemplary, going in depth in some fields, while bridging areas between
them (Wagenschein, 1968b/1997). Even if this might mean using an initially slower
process,39 we should never instead be tempted to run into the trap of telling simplified lies
as scientific crutches for laypeople to remember our results without understanding the way
of getting there. Such an approach entails the dangers of a populist “Pop Science”, a science
misusing oversimplified models, custom-tailored in order to lure laymen into supporting
hidden political agendas. Without fundamental scientific understanding it is then impossible
to distinguish Popular Science from Pop Science.
Popular Science is not Pop Science. By teaching fundamental scientific understanding to
many people we can aim to reduce irrational fears of science’s “mystical and potentially evil”
nature and increase the ability of everyone to question the reasonability and scientific nature
of Pop Science statements. Then we are also close to Popper’s (1959) claim that scientific
theories should not exist in a remote ivory tower, but that they should be made questionable
by as many people as possible. Especially under constant scrutiny, theories tend to become
scientifically more robust. This does not necessarily require more science education, but a
stronger emphasis on a conceptual fundament. Only if people know how science translates
into their daily lives, will they be able to understand its usefulness and develop opportunities
from this knowledge.
As the emotional rejection of Mach’s epistemology forms a strong part of my argument –
and as some people might hold that it was only possible for this to happen 100 years ago –
I will, in the following, give two examples of followers of Mach’s epistemology in education:

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302   Public Understanding of Science 19(3)

Martin Wagenschein in Germany and Alexander Israel Wittenberg in Switzerland and Canada.
With their ideas they were facing similar problems.

6. Wagenschein and the remains of physics education

The first example is Martin Wagenschein (1896–1988), a teacher of physics who became one
of the most influential professors in physics didactics in Germany after the Second World War.
His ideas are still mentioned as the ideal of teaching in Germany (although this ideal is
regarded as unreachable, there has not been any serious attempt to implement them; see for
example Vollrath, 1990: v). His main focus was on showing that current (physics) education
leaves little trace in the minds of students, even after nine years of physics at school. He espe-
cially highlighted the problem that even if students could produce shards of factual knowledge,
they completely lacked scientific understanding of the meaning of these fragments.
When Wagenschein demonstrated this lack of scientific understanding, the old Mach–
Planck debate resurfaced in a different guise. Wagenschein was attacked by a physics teacher
who argued that popularization would corrode the quality of knowledge (Wagenschein,
1970b: 149 ff). Wagenschein retorted that, on the contrary, well-understood physics principles
would enhance its quality as compared to ritualized parroting-back of abstract formulas (see
also Bransford et al., 1999). Premature abstraction resembles taking the second step40 before
the first. Rediscovering the world from the point of view of the original scientific discoverers
(such as Kepler)41 could not possibly reduce the quality of thought, nor be unscientific. On
the contrary, we cannot cut short the way to understanding without recourse to its origin.42
Otherwise, the very understanding is probably lost on the way. Physics can ultimately only
find mental analogies to physical phenomena (although these might be mathematical43) and
construct models from them. But these models are always descriptions, not to be mistaken for
reality itself. Sometimes – as in the case of light – even two analogies are needed (wave and
particle; Wagenschein, 1970b: 122).44
Strangely, although Wagenschein was a confessed follower of Mach’s genetic-adaptive
approach to education (Wagenschein, 1970b), his dissertation on physics education was
enthusiastically endorsed by Planck (Wagenschein, 1983/2002: 45–6). This again hints at my
argument that Planck’s attack on Mach was inspired more by political than by scientific epis-
temological disagreement. Such interpretation would also explain Feyerabend’s (1987: 209)
observation that Planck, in his later speeches, was unable to keep his epistemological view
consistent, although he so aggressively stated it. Planck’s intuitive closeness to Mach’s views
resurfaced continuously, leading exactly to those inconsistencies.
As we can see, the debate between Mach and Planck still does not seem settled: much of
science has not been made understandable for “ordinary people”, not even in Western socie-
ties. Even worse, understanding seems to become limited to smaller and smaller groups of
specialists. Wittenberg (1968) therefore claimed that, ultimately, specialization is a betrayal
instead of a service for modern societies. It leads to less rather than more understanding of
scientific issues in public and thereby opens possibilities for populist (pop) manipulations.

7. Wittenberg: educational priorities and genetic teaching

Alexander Israel Wittenberg (1926–1965) and his family were forced into emigration several
times due to political persecution in Europe. His parents had to leave Russia for Berlin

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 Siemsen: The Mach-Planck debate revised   303

because of Lenin’s Bolsheviks, and he first had to escape Hitler in 1933 by fleeing to France,
from where he again had to escape to Switzerland during the German invasion in 1942. His
dissertation about the philosophy of mathematics was on “Denken in Begriffen” [thinking in
concepts], supervised by the philosopher Gonseth and the mathematician Bernays, the former
assistant of Hilbert. Afterwards he accepted a professorial position in Canada (Quebec, and
later Toronto). There, he died far too early in 1965 at the age of 39.45
Wittenberg seems to be mostly forgotten in Canada and in the US. Maybe he was far too
ahead of his time (and a little too provocative, even for the taste of his intellectual friends such
as Freudenthal). His current relevance can be seen in the so-called “math wars” in the USA
(for current evaluations, see for example Klein, 2003; or Anderson et al., 1997). Already in
his time, Wittenberg46 criticized both sides, the “progressive” as well as the “classical” (and
here especially the “new maths”), for not being consistent, for not being empirical, and addi-
tionally for avoiding fundamental epistemological reflection and comparisons. He criticized
all attempts at reforms for not testing their assumptions (especially their implicit ones), or for
only testing them in an ideal environment. Furthermore, he criticized the habit of too rashly
introducing new mathematical concepts (such as set theory) to environments (such as schools)
where psychological and not logical considerations should dominate.47 The resulting compro-
mises too often rely on adding more and more content to curricula which teachers then have
to hurry through in order to fulfil them. Thereby teachers concentrate mostly on the formulas
instead of on the concepts and meanings, simply because the former can be written faster on
the blackboard. For Wittenberg, instead of curricula, school didactics should first concentrate
on their own aims and priorities, which for him lie mainly in learning to distinguish the
important from the unimportant, the general ideas from the detailed knowledge.48
Wittenberg (1968) went even further. According to him, democratization of knowledge
also means equality regarding access to education, and optimum quality of education for
everybody. This is a far-reaching statement about education. It may seem easy to reject on
grounds that it apparently requires a lot more resources. But Wittenberg claimed that one does
not necessarily have to see it this way. Instead, he argued, it is more a question concerning a
scientific approach to education: deciding on long-term aims, gathering relevant information,
setting priorities, and then systematically testing, combining and implementing all of them.
Primarily, we should take care that democratization attempts do not lead to educational infla-
tion, but to educational value-creation (Wittenberg, 1968). So, ultimately, we have to watch
the economy of education in the long run. This lies at the heart of Alfred N. Whitehead’s
(1954) dictum: “Education has to teach the art of the utilization of knowledge” (cited after
Wittenburg). We are too poor to afford low educational quality and so much waste.
This argumentation returns to the point that science needs to rethink its meaning as it
permeates more and more into everybody’s life. If it is not to be regarded as the new religion
(an overconfident promise scientists have failed to fulfil many times already), it needs to
change public (and maybe its own) understanding of the fundamental concepts it is built
upon: of knowledge, search into the unknown, and ultimately its epistemology. In analogy
with the Great Inquisitor, science can otherwise be seen by its critics as trying to finish the
“second tower of Babel” by claiming to explain the world and everything, even “God’s
thoughts”. But this rational realism type of explaining is epistemologically hollow and satis-
fies neither the need for a purpose in life, nor the hunger for understanding and enlighten-
ment. It may be possible to swallow it, but, at least for the majority of people, it is not
digestible. It is rather the freedom of thought which still promises to carry the torch of knowl-
edge into the unknown. But such a freedom can only be reached through a general under-
standing and ability to question fundamental concepts.49

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304   Public Understanding of Science 19(3)

8. How can we popularize and democratize science in the Machian way?

It is of course right to ask that everybody be scientifically educated in school. The role of
science and technology has grown due to industrialization. But such a claim does not offer
solutions to how this could be effectively achieved. Even worse, the physicalistic-realism
vision of science seems to become institutionalized in different scientific societies.50 If sci-
ence holds the key to the ultimate objective truth, all scientists should promote this supposed
truth in unison, maybe only respecting slightly different points of view from each discipline.
Then, each new generation again proposes to have found the “unchallengeable science”
which should be taught as the ultimate truth.51
If this view bears any resemblance to phenomena of public understanding of science, are
we then condemned to stay stuck in this elitist trap of scientific development? First of all we
can never be sure to hold the final scientific truth, not even if we had found it.52 Secondly, all
our science, even mathematics, always rests on intuitively assumed axioms (Wittenberg,
1957; Gödel, 1981; Brouwer, 1992). We need intuition in order to search and find new ideas
and better theories. Additionally, as observers we are always an integral part of the system,
even in physics (Heisenberg, 1969). Therefore, science can never be fully objective, and even
less “final”.
From Thomas Kuhn (1962) we know that we depend on scientific paradigms framing our
interpretations. If we exclusively teach a current paradigm as the ultimate truth, we cement it.
We then tend to disregard the strengths and insights of former paradigms. Even the history of
science is often taught in an adapted way to make it seem like a smooth road leading straight
to the new paradigm. But, judging from historical experience (Sarton 1916), this road has
never been smooth. Each paradigm is just the latest and there will be others.53
Furthermore, there is the psychology of Mach’s third level of science. If, for example, we
abstract from the difficulties, we might also unintentionally make learning the new concepts
more difficult for students. They tend to have problems with understanding concepts exactly
at those transitional points where, historically, the next step also seems to have been unusually
difficult (Wittenberg, 1963b). Teaching from such a limited perspective will not assist, but
hinder scientific progress. This was why Mach strongly objected to teaching that way and
thereby cementing an as yet empirically untested theory (such as atom theory or relativity at
that time). It is, rather, necessary to demystify the current scientific doctrine (at least in
schools) in order to popularize science by empiriocritical teaching of its genetic process. Such
teaching recapitulates in an exemplary way the important stages of scientific insights, guiding
students to rediscover these insights themselves. Only then they will truly make sense out of
scientific principles, understand their meanings and be able to translate these meanings to
their daily lives.54
Nevertheless, the key question remains unresolved: Are we committed to democratizing
knowledge, or is it only a few of the elite who think this should be done, while the silent major-
ity carries on as always? Are some even happy to guard their precious special knowledge
behind smokescreens of abstract theorizing and insider language? Mach would have stated that
we need a monistic approach to unify the sciences. Unfortunately, monism has been used for
many agendas, even elitist ones. Monism from a Machian perspective is not monolithic, but
about the most general ideas of what science is; a method of search into the unknown, a sys-
tematization of thinking and making sense of our experiences in a way that we can adapt our
actions to make them more adequate to these experiences. There are different valid points of
view, depending on the subject studied, which can supplement each other and counteract the
common practice of reinventing the scientific wheel in different disciplines. In order to achieve
this, monism at least has to enable different scientific disciplines to speak to one another, to

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 Siemsen: The Mach-Planck debate revised   305

allow the layman to understand the essence of this discourse and, if possible, even to partici-
pate in it. Ideally, the disciplines should be compatible in order to constantly be able to enrich
each other and ensure that everybody understands the basic concepts behind them. Then Pop
Science would be void of seductive power. Such compatibility can only be reached by develop-
ing a cognitive understanding of each other’s methodology of adapting thoughts, and by the
humbling assumption that no single methodology or idea can ever hold the “absolute truth”.
This type of monism is very pragmatic, but sticks to the claim that science can ultimately only
advance by more completely and coherently describing phenomena. Science has to learn from
its inherently different points of view, as well as from laymen questioning the very assump-
tions which we as academics have so intuitively grown accustomed to.
How to achieve this? Maybe we should look back into history at the claims of the Meran
resolution (Meraner Beschlüsse, for example in Klein, 1907) in which the mathematician
Felix Klein tried to implement at least a part of Mach’s educational program. But then the
wars came and the ideas were largely forgotten. Wagenschein was a signatory to the
“Resolution of Tuebingen” (Tübinger Resolution, 1951), which tried to revive the ideas from
Meran. Little has happened up to now. This would call for a different form of education and
a scientific search method for optimizing this form, rather than constantly adding new con-
tents (see also Wittenberg, 1965). But then again, this article was meant to raise the issue, not
to provide a final answer. So the question remains for further research. To put it in Mach’s
words from his Mechanics: “The highest philosophy of a natural scientist is to bear an unfin-
ished worldview” (Mach, 1883/1976: 443).

Acknowledgements

I would like to especially thank Enno Siemsen, Karl-Henning Reschke, Liliana Siemsen,
Nitin Sood, Klaus-Peter Fried and Karl Hayo Siemsen for their valuable ideas and construc-
tive critique.

Notes

  1 One has to bear in mind that knowledge for Mach is not factual, but process knowledge. Therefore, understanding is
not necessarily enhanced by fact and effect-centred popularization, as can often be seen in popular science shows.
  2 As will be elaborated in more detail below, Planck attacked Mach in 1908 for promoting an epistemology of sci-
ence, which Planck thought to be detrimental for teaching science (i.e. especially for teaching quantum physics).
Mach replied to Planck that the epistemology of science should not be based on the latest physical theory, but on
empirical phenomena, which would provide a safer (sensualistic) basis for the understanding and development of
science. Planck would with his approach make physical theory a mystical religion, which people had to believe in
instead of being able to understanding it. Planck’s view (1908/1988a, 1910/1988b) became very popular as differ-
ent forms of “physicalism”, i.e. the belief in current physical theory as the epistemic basis for all of science.
  3 Greek for “to save the phenomena”.
  4 The most notable exceptions have been Blüh (1970), Hohenester (1988), Matthews (1988, 1990, 1994) and
Hoffmann and Manthei (1991).
  5 “Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral” [food is prior, morals secondary], as Bertolt Brecht wrote in
his Threepenny Opera.
  6 It is interesting to note that this concept of knowledge seems to have originated with the idea of dualism, which
was seemingly developed first in Iranian religious culture by Zoroaster (for details see Eliade, 1976/2002).
Ahura Mazda- as the main God creates the twin spirits Spenta and Angra Mainyu, who are created equal, but
become good/bad rivals by their own decision. Later they become associated with “time” and “space”. From
them emerges on the one hand the ideal, eternal, spiritual/mental me-no-k, and on the other the material, physical/
mental ge-tik. From the me-no-k, Plato seems to have abstracted his ideal ideas, a concept which in turn was

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306   Public Understanding of Science 19(3)

refined by Descartes and Newton. Here we can see that the idea of “having found God’s thoughts” is still inherent
in this concept of knowledge. But this historical background shall, in this article, only serve as an example for
historical paths of intuitive dimensions of concepts and as a hint that the different concepts of knowledge men-
tioned here (initiatory and adaptive) might derive from very old and different traditions. An in-depth historical
analysis would require much more detail.
  7 The speed of sound is still measured in Mach and the organ of spatial perception behind the ear was co-discovered
by him.
  8 Naming the chair so was based on an idea of Franz Brentano, although Mach was not very happy about it
(Brentano, 1988).
  9 See for example Heller (1964), Shionoya (1997), Georgescu-Roegen (1971/1991), Hayek (1952/1963),
Feyerabend (1987), Pojman (2000), von Ehrenfels (1890), Haller and Stadler (1988). For an overview, see
Holton (1992).
10 Now named Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
11 Einstein in his obituary (Einstein, 1916: 102) to Mach defended him against Planck, stating that all the physi-
cists of his own generation, even Mach’s seemingly professed enemies, had “sucked-in Mach so-to-speak with
their mother’s milk”. With this, Einstein was referring to Mach’s intuitive influence, for instance through his
school books. Mach wrote and co-authored the physics school books (for different ages) which were used in
Germany and Austria from 1890 into the 1920s (many editions of different versions until 1917).
12 A principle similar to Occam’s razor (see for example Blüh, 1970), but based on input/output optimization
rather than only parsimony.
13 This point of view was held for example by Einstein, Blackmore and others. Karl Popper even wrote an article
comparing Mach’s view to Berkeley’s (Popper, 1953). But if we reduce his genesis concept to its phenomeno-
logical dimension, it is neither idealistic Berkeleyan (because for Mach reality exists, although we can know of
it only indirectly), nor logicistic, such as that of Husserl, who had problems with Mach’s point of view, seemingly
because of this difference (Heller, 1964: 61–64; Siemsen and Siemsen, 2009). Mach’s epistemology was instead
genetic, in which phenomenology is one dimension. In Mach’s genetic epistemology, sense perceptions form a
relation between the (physical) world and the (psychical) self (therefore integrally belonging to both as a whole).
Perceptions inherently also depend on understanding and interpretation. In Mach’s view, perceptions are already
adaptations of “reality”, depending on and resulting from our biological and cultural (historical) genesis.
14 Planck interpreted through as with. For Mach, perceptions can be studied in different ways and this knowledge
changes the perceptions. We can learn to see our perceptions with different eyes, so to speak.
15 Mach (1905/2002: 3) calls this “the adaptation of the thoughts to the facts and of the thoughts to each other”.
16 Mach did not reject them as theories, but asked that they be treated with caution. He especially never accepted
the “belief in” atoms postulated by atomic theory (Thiele, 1978), though he accepted the theory to have scien-
tific value. In his view there should never be a theory about something un-dividable, as this would be meta-
physical such as the Kantian thing-in-itself [Ding an sich]. In this respect he was right: atoms are dividable.
Furthermore, anything un-experiencable would have to be “translated” into perception-experience, thus making
the knowledge also available for non-specialists. Commenting on atoms, he provocatively and ironically used
to ask: “Have you seen one?” (Mach, 1893/1986). This ironic approach has unfortunately caused many misin-
terpretations among (non-Austrian) science historians, especially with regard to Mach. One should note here
that according to Austrians themselves, Austrian humour and cultural subtleties are inaccessible to anyone else.
As a non-Austrian, I admit being equally puzzled sometimes.
17 We use former experiences in order to complete perceptions by analogy (see Mach 1905/2002: 10; but also
Lorenz, 1959/1968).
18 Mach especially warned against the uncritical use of analogies from our “normal” world of perceptions for
newly found scientific worlds in which some of their properties might not be applicable (on the epistemic
implications of this, see Siemsen, 2009). This difficulty can be exemplified by a still ongoing debate in didac-
tics, of whether the use of particle analogies for atoms helps or hinders understanding of the physical concept
of atoms. For example, the majority of people believe that atoms are red and electrons yellow, because they tend
to be depicted like this in the physics books (in some cultures, they are blue, depending on the colour used in
the books). In this context, Mach’s critical comments on atomic theory appear in a different light.
19 Genetically, psychology and logic can have conflicting goals. In science education therefore, psychological concerns
need to be prior to logical ones. See for example the current debate over the concept of force, which is metaphysical
in current physical theory, but still taught in school (Wilczek, 2004). Another concept coming into disuse in schools is
Newton’s concept of “interaction”. It was recently reintroduced in physics education in Finland.
20 Planck’s grandfather and great-grandfather were professors of theology.
21 For details on Planck’s character, see Heilbron (1988).
22 One of Planck’s main arguments against Mach was that he was anthropomorphic. Mach had argued that as
human beings, our concepts are always inherently anthropomorphic so that we should be aware of this and

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 Siemsen: The Mach-Planck debate revised   307

question the anthropomorphic aspects of our scientific concepts. Seen from Wittenberg’s perspective, Planck’s
anthropomorphism was in his epistemology of seeing science as a religion.
23 He even symbolically did so by leaving the Austrian academy of sciences.
24 It should be noted here that this is a similarity of epistemic method, while the content of their epistemologies is
different (for a detailed historical analysis, see Siemsen, 2009). Wagenschein developed this method into the
Socratic teaching method. Because it is based on language, it psychologically requires a minimum level of
scientific literacy. Therefore it is one, but not the universal, method of popularization.
25 Similar ideas seemingly led Kuhn (1962) to develop his famous concept of paradigm.
26 At this point the reader might conduct a small self-experiment and recall what he or she remembers of the initial
quotation from Mach in the introduction. Did Mach for instance postulate that children can in principle form
concepts of any level of precision? Is it a thought that stays in the mind and if so, why? It seems to contradict
some of our intuitions (which tends to trigger the emotionally averse reaction of “frowning”). Depending on the
personal intuitions of the reader, the idea might offer enough “mental resistance” to be interesting, but not too
much to be rejected outright. Maybe it is wrong, but it might just be worth trying.
27 From a Machian perspective, all science can only approximately describe reality, and is not to be mistaken for
reality itself.
28 Paul Feyerabend (1987) already partly discussed this in his defence of Mach’s philosophy of knowledge against
the epistemology of Planck and Einstein.
29 Pauli was Mach’s godchild and Mach passed his ideas on to him early in his life (see Laurikainen, 1989).
30 A perspective with which Planck and Einstein disagreed (Feyerabend, 1987).
31 This is a metaphor adapted from the “stream of consciousness” of William James and from A. N. Whitehead
(1954) who saw theory and practice as the two sources of the river of science. James later noted that conscious-
ness is an inherently misleading concept, which needs to be dropped as a general concept in psychology. Thus,
the time metaphor of a stream is kept here in order to stress the process character of perception, but explicitly
basing it on all (not only conscious) psychopsysiological phenomena of perception.
32 It should be noted here that the concept of optimization has a property of time, i.e. optimizing the transmission
of the most current knowledge does not optimize the transmission in the long term, just as short-term optimiza-
tion of investments do not necessarily optimize the output in the long term.
33 Unfortunately, the English speaking audience has only limited access to it. While the English edition has 13 articles,
the last German edition had 33. Additionally, most of Mach’s educational writings, like his articles in the teacher’s
journal on physics and chemistry education, of which he was co-founder, have unfortunately not been translated.
34 That this applies not only to human societies but also to orangutans has been shown by Van Schaik (2006). It is
not a question of a teleologically defined “progress”, but of the democratization of knowledge.
35 Author’s own translation from Wagenschein (1968a/1970a: 7).
36 For a detailed analysis, see Matthews (1994).
37 Kepler translating Aristotle, quoted by Wagenschein (1970b: 31).
38 From a neurologist perspective, the synapses are strengthened, which for Mach has the same empirical meaning.
39 In experiments it shows to be exponential instead of linear in learning: slow in the beginning and then becoming
very fast (see for instance Siemsen, 1981).
40 Or even the third according to Bruner (1974), who saw understanding as developing from the enactive to the
ikonic and only then to the symbolic level.
41 This includes their mistakes as well, although not in order to repeat them, but to learn from them, as many
students tend to make the same mistakes initially.
42 One might remember Euclid’s dictum here, when a king asked him to explain his Elements to him in a shorter
way, that “there is no royal road to understanding the elements” (Sarton, 1952/1970).
43 For Mach, mathematics in principle is founded on analogous pattern recognition, for reasons of economy of thought
idealized and symbolized into numbers, geometrical forms, etc. Since this developed very early in human history and,
at least in Western cultures, is recapitulated very early in childhood, we cannot consciously recognize this basis.
Therefore we tend to think we can easily abstract from it in “pure mathematics”. But these empirical roots are not gone,
only hidden, and may subconsciously sprout without being noticed (see for example Mach, 1905/2002: 10). Instead of
hiding them, we need to uncover and study them for their metaphysical dimensions, as famous mathematicians (such
as Cantor, 1907; and Brouwer, 1992) and historians of science (Sarton, 1952/1970) have tried to do.
44 One should note that the wave analogy and its popularization, originally at least, partly stems from Mach (1863).
45 For details, see for example Siemsen (2008). Contrary to Wagenschein, Wittenberg is not explicitly Machian,
but intuitively very close to him (he seems to have known Mach only indirectly through Wagenschein); this shall
suffice for this example.
46 That he was not alone with this, but at least for a part of his claims had broader support from central mathema-
ticians of his time, can be seen in the Memorandum of 1962 (“On the Mathematics Curriculum of the High
School”), which was signed by 75 professors from the US and Canada.

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308   Public Understanding of Science 19(3)

47 This important distinction had already been made by Mach (1890).

48 He quotes positive examples from Conant’s General Education program, such as Holton’s or Roger’s courses
of physics.
49 Wittenberg (1963b) gave an example of this in his “Unusual Course for Future Teachers of Mathematics”.
50 This not only had its effect in Germany, but also indirectly in the US research system modelled on the German
system, as has been elaborated for example by Nelson (1993).
51 The futility of this assumption as a regularly reoccurring fallacy in science has been aptly pointed out by George
Sarton (1916). In order to curb the fallacy of taking current trends and fashions in science to be absolute, Sarton
(by quoting Mach) sees the necessity of teaching the history of science as a method of teaching science. This
pedagogic insight became one of the leading ideas of James Conant’s General Education movement (1945),
block-and-gap teaching, etc.
52 At least according to Popper (1959). This is a view almost exactly stated by Mach, too, but half a century earlier
(Mach, 1897/1959).
53 Also Planck’s constant does not seem to be the final word in physics as current discussions about it show. Maybe
it is not constant over very long periods of time (relative to the human life-span, i.e. an anthropomorphic view).
54 Only then will the sun the farmer’s child sees rising over the fields be the same sun this child learns about at
school, as Simone Weil had remarked (quoted after Wagenschein).

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Author

Hayo Siemsen is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Applied Sciences, Germany.

Correspondence: University of Applied Sciences, Oldenburg/Ostfriesland/Wilhelmshaven,
26723 Emden, Germany; e-mail: hayo.siemsen@gmail.com

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