 Ernst Mach is commonly credited with introducing the word “thought experiment” (Gadankenexperiment) and thereby coining a term for philosophical discussion (most recently Krauthausen 2015, p. 15). “ This view is incorrect, however! […] it can be substantiated that it was used […] already in 1811” (Witt-Hansen 1976, p. 48; see also Buzzoni 2008, pp. 14–15; 61–65; Cohnitz 2008; Kühne 2005, pp. 92–224; Moue et al. 2006, p. 63). The conceptual history of “thought experiment” goes back at least to the Danish “Tankeexperiment,” as it was used by Hans-Christian Ørsted. We can go back even further and find in the work of the German philosopher-scientist Georg Lichtenberg (1742–1799) a tacit theory of “experiments with thoughts and ideas.” These experiments help to overcome habits of thought that can inhibit scientific progress, and make possible an enlightened philosophy (see Schildknecht 1990, pp. 21; 123–169; Schöne 1982). Lichtenberg’s “aphoristic experiments” (see Stern 1963, pp. 112–126) reflect “that Lichtenberg’s scientific preoccupations are the formal and thematic prolegomena to his work as a literary artist” (Stern 1963, p. 126). Lichtenberg’s reflections on thought experimentation resemble those of Popper and Thomas S. Kuhn, and it is plausible to think of him as one important figure of the very first period in the history of philosophical inquiry into thought experiments (see Fehige and Stuart 2014).