Sydney Teachers College and University of New South Wales

The chapter details my first academic appointment as a lecturer in philosophy of education at Sydney Teachers College; the tumultuous college-wide debates about assessment; the impact of ‘radical education’ in the college, including the conduct of a large ‘counter course’. It details my appointment to UNSW and beginning of my personal HPS&ST teaching and research. It covers the all important sabbatical year spent at the Boston University Centre for History and Philosophy of Science and the enormous influence on me of BU staff: Michael Martin, Bob Cohen, Marx Wartofsky, and Abner Shimony. Apart from so many other things, it was the beginning of my work on Galileo, particularly his pendulum studies. The unfortunate decline of both philosophy of education and of HPS at UNSW are noted. The chapter discusses the MA thesis on Galileo’s physics I wrote for Sydney University, and which emerged from my BU studies with Shimony.