Product Description

On 25th October 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The meeting was a disaster, their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of legend. This book tells what really went on in that room.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39112 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Wittgenstein's Poker is a mini biography of the lives of Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein leading up to their one and only meeting at the Cambridge moral science club in October 1946 where their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of legend. What happened? Why did the two great philosophers behave as they did? What did Popper have against Wittgenstein? At stake was the meaning and direction of the analytic revolution--which had been led by Bertrand Russell --and, ultimately, the purpose of philosophy itself.

Edmonds and Eidinow's treatment is a very clever and interesting way to introduce the history of philosophy in the first third of the 20th century. The 10 minute argument provides an effective and fascinating organising focus for the whole book--not only because one is curious to find out who said what and why--but because to understand what really happened involves finding out what kind of men these great philosophers were, and how they stood to the philosophic tradition. Popper's opposition to Wittgenstein however, was more than just a difference in philosophic views; on a deeper level Wittgenstein represented the Vienna that had been out of reach even to the son of a respected and socially responsible lawyer: "In Wittgenstein he saw the imperial city where riches and status commanded respect and opened doors, the separate territory where inflation-wrought poverty had no place and the Nazis could be bought off."

It is the social and political background of the story, the class differences, as well as the philosophic differences between the two great philosophers which makes this book so unusual and interesting. Part biography, part social history, part history of philosophy Wittgenstein's Poker is informative, entertaining and accessible. --Larry Brown

Customer Reviews

Clash of Titans
Compare it to the famous debate on evolution at the British Association meeting in Oxford in 1860 between Darwinists and their opponents like the palaeontologist Robert Owen and Bishop 'Soapy Sam' Wilberforce. There, T.H.Huxley ('Darwin's Bulldog') baldly stated that he would rather be descended from an ape than from a Bishop who made specious and rediculous arguments. This literally brought the house down, and established Huxley as the hero who had vanquished the foe and established the hegemony of Darwinism, agnosticism and science over intellectual life. Except that more recent investigation has found the truth to be a little different. Huxley's speech, besides the 'ape/ Bishop' riposte, was not particularly convincing, and at least one Darwinist was heard to say afterwards 'The Bishop got the best of it'. The really forceful speaker who established the Evolution argument at Oxford was Darwin's friend, the botanist Thomas Hooker.

What does this tell us about the subject of this book? That myth is established in memory of what we wish had happened. Because of Huxley's smart retort, then he had to be the hero, and Hooker was forgotten. According to Edmonds and Eidenow, Popper in his memoirs cast himself in the Huxley role, witty riposte and all. But for the memory of one man (Peter Geach, who wrote to the TLS on the matter), we might still live with this particular myth.

The intellectual road to Room H3 is well explored in this book, managing to take in the key philosophical threads of the early part of the century - mainly the shift from epistemology to logic, and the focus on language established by Wittgenstein. Both men are well portrayed as forceful, agressive and (it has to be said) unpleasant debaters. To me, a long-time admirer of Popper, he does comes across with the more attractive human side - he had many close friends who loved him dearly. Wittgenstein seemed to only have disciples, and one feels that the wild exterior somehow went all the way to the core of the man. What you saw was what you got.

One can see that one of the things Popper reacted to was Wittgenstein's prophetic aura and oracular utterances - Popper despised intellectual 'authorities' (except perhaps himself) and deliberately tried to 'down' his opponent. One remark which was not quoted was Rudolf Carnap: "I have learned that the distance funtion is not symmetrical. The distance from me to Popper is much less than the distance from Popper to me.'

The authors have produced a tour-de-force which I highly recommend to anyone who is even vaguely interested in philosophy or the history of ideas. My one quibble is: was this as critical to the state of philosophy as the authors make out? Certainly it was not as critical to history or science generally as the BA 1860 debate. Popper may have thought so, but the authors show that the explosive meeting had little effect on the reputations of either man.

Those who enjoyed this book may like 'The Cambridge Quintet' by John L. Casti, a fictitous recreation of a dinner attended by Wittgenstein, Erwin Schrodinger and Alan Turing in which they explore their major ideas on philosophy and science.

Utterly fascinating--but why?
I picked this up more or less by accident. The text quickly engaged me and I read the book rather quickly. But why? I had almost no knowledge about Ludwig Wittgenstein the logical positivist philosopher, and only a little more about Karl Popper one of the leading philosophers of science. Philosophy since Hume has mostly left me uninterested. While some people think (famously) that all philosophy consists merely of footnotes to Plato, I've always believed that the great empiricists, especially David Hume put to rest most of the important questions.

The focus is a meeting of the Moral Science Club at Cambridge on October 25, 1946 in which it is alleged that Ludwig Wittgenstein in exasperation at his inability to shut Karl Popper up (or perhaps because of his inability to successfully counter Popper's arguments) picked up a red hot poker from the fireplace and waved it menacingly at Popper, and then departed the room.

What actually happened is a matter of some curious and lengthy debate according to the various accounts from those present. Edmonds and Eidinow go to some length to establish the various points of view and to explain why what happened happened. They take a thorough look at the background and personalities of Wittgenstein and Popper. This is the strength of the book: the fascinating detail about the lives and ideas of the two protagonists set against the horrific history of Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Both Wittgenstein and Popper came from Vienna to England, both were Jewish and both had disciples and followers who considered them giants in philosophy. Significantly, Wittgenstein was born into a very wealthy family while Popper's roots are more middle class.

Wittgenstein believed that the questions of philosophy were linguistic "puzzles," a belief that offended Popper who believed that there were genuine "problems" yet to be solved in philosophy; and furthermore, to relegate the problems of philosophy to mere "puzzles" was to demean philosophy itself and its practitioners.

I have no idea who is right. In fact, even after reading this book, I am still in a fog about the difference between a "puzzle" and a "problem" except to note that puzzles should be relatively trivial compared to problems. My inclination is to lean toward Popper, author of the famous and highly influential books, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) and The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959) and other works. Wittgenstein's published works are not as celebrated, but according to Edmonds and Eidinow he is regarded among professional philosophers as one of the greatest of all time, to rank ahead of Hume and Descartes, behind Aristotle, Plato, Kant and Nietzsche. (p. 292)

Consequently in addition to providing the reader with a most interesting tale of intellectual warfare, this book has inspired me to read more about the philosophy of Wittgenstein and Popper. In particular I want to compare Popper's ideas about the philosophy of science with those of Thomas Kuhn.

Bottom line: this is the only book I know of about the lives and works of philosophers that is in any way a threat to become a Hollywood movie.

Two big men in a big,bad world.
This book begins in one small, dark room with two opposing theories about knowledge. It then takes the reader on an epic journey through the political, social, and academic landscape of the twentieth century, before returning back to the dark room with the two personalities behind the theories - which is always going to be more fun.

It's sweep is misleadingly vast. Popper and Wittgenstein are at the same time seen as heavy-weights in a self-conscious world, and pawns in the greater game going on around them. That so much history, biography and philosophical theory can be contained within so few pages is incredible. The lives of Popper and Wittgenstein could not fail to produce an epic tale, but so much credit must go to the authors for understanding that no piece of information is too small in a detective story, and that it doesn't matter from which quarter the information comes, be it philosophic tomes, old letters, reconstructed memories, or even forgotten memos passed between low-ranking Nazi officers.

The book defies categorisation. It is far and away the most original premise of the year. Informative, vast and brilliant.