†Horst Pfeiffle
March 2, 1940, Vienna – March 18, 2024, Vienna

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our former institute director, Prof. Horst Pfeiffle, following a long illness. Horst Pfeiffle was one of the most versatile representatives of education one could imagine and wish for.

He studied philosophy, psychology, education, social psychology, and German language and literature in Vienna, Heidelberg, and Frankfurt am Main, with study visits taking him to Italy, France, and England.

Horst Pfeiffle was an art connoisseur and cineaste; he completed a two-year film and television course at the Academy of Fine Arts and made a documentary film with Herwig Libowitzky about a Viennese Art Nouveau fish market.

In addition to the then-new media, he also became familiar with the non-university working world in a wide variety of functions, from support services in a bank to working as an assistant to the chairman of the supervisory board and heading a staff unit for co-determination and participation agendas as well as for training and further education issues in a German industrial company.

After returning from Germany, he habilitated at the Institute of Education at the University of Vienna with the thesis "Cognition and Reflection. Studies on the Development of Knowledge and Knowledge Formation" and was a lecturer at the Vienna University of Technology for over a decade. He was awarded first prize by the International Society for Engineering Education (IGIP) in Basel for his cooperatively developed university teaching model "Learning in Mechanics".

He was awarded the Vienna Prize for Adult Education for his commitment and the quality of his contributions in the field of adult education (ORF science magazine, lecturing, learning in media networks, etc.).

A scholarship from Pro Helvetia enabled him to accept an invitation from Jean Piaget to Geneva to join the Centre international d'Épistémologie génétique. In the genetic epistemology of the Geneva School, Horst Pfeiffle was one of the first to recognize the cognitive shift in the human sciences.

From 1990 to 2008, Horst Pfeiffle was director of the Institute for Educational Science and Philosophy, formerly the Institute for Pedagogy with the Department of Philosophy. Horst Pfeiffle took on roles in numerous university committees with great commitment, including chairing the Department of Formal and Humanities and taking on roles in university self-administration.

In recognition of his academic achievements, he received invitations from the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain to lecture at New College (Oxford) and to conferences of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia, the Jean Piaget Society, and the International Society for Engineering Education and Modern Engineering Pedagogy.

After his retirement in 2008, he returned to the place where his academic career began and shared his knowledge and experience as a visiting professor at the University of Vienna's Institute of Education.

His research focused on Austrian education policy in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the history of pedagogy, the philosophy of education and training, developmental psychology and its pedagogical application, and media didactics.

Horst Pfeiffle had extensive knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences, literature, fine arts, music, film, media, politics, and economics. This sparked the interest of many students and others in courses, lectures, and debates in various groups and organizations on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary issues and findings. He had a good knowledge of several languages and repeatedly familiarized himself with new languages in order to expand his information and communication horizons. Horst Pfeiffle also proved to be a brilliant and stimulating participant in informal meetings and discussion groups.

List of publications, lectures, and media contributions by Horst Pfeiffle