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Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers

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Wittgenstein's Poker by Dave Edmonds & John Eidinow, a distant cousin to The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand, is a good book, but not a great book. The book is a parallel biography of two of the most important philosophers of the 20th Century, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. The book starts with the one meeting between the two philosophers, which ended with Wittgenstein wielding a fire poker at Popper. I was originally going to give the book a full 5 stars, but I feel the ending let me down. I was expecting the authors to tie all the disparate threads followed in the book together better than they did, but was disappointed when the book just whimpered to an end, especially after such a clever beginning. I would still recommend the book to folks interested in philosophy, Wittgenstein, Popper, and the history of the first half of the 20th Century. If I could, I'd give the book a 4.4 stars. ...

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper were two leading philosophers from Vienna who settled in England after WWII. Both were fringe members of the Vienna Circle, but they only met once, in Cambridge. Wittgenstein held the chair in philosophy. Popper, a professor at London, had been invited to speak. An argument quickly broke out that later had philosophers around the world wondering whether Wittgenstein had threatened Popper with a fireplace poker. This book takes the event as a springboard for an investigation into the backgrounds of these two men and the philosphical, Viennese and Jewish cultures that they grew up in. The authors give a compelling description of a time when philosophical disagreements were worth fighting over. What really happened in that room in that room in Cambridge? Why was Wittgenstein so angry? And did Popper lie about the events in his autobiography? If so, what does this say about the role of truth in his philosopy? I should confess that i've been an avid student of Wittgenstein's writings, as well a student of Popper's work. Nonetheless, i think this book would be accessable and enjoyable by anyone interested in learning more about these great philosophers.

This was a fun read and I devoured it in about three days. It provided fascinating biographical and historical details and it was decent overview of the philosophical issues of the time. Yet I came away feeling a little short-changed. The book didn't offer a very clear view of Wittgenstein's philosophy, how he used it and how he applied it. The same perhaps could be said of the book's characterization of Popper but I knew much more about Popper coming in. Finally, the book never really provides a blow-by-blow account of the argument -- Popper said this, Wittgenstein responded with that, Popper replied thusly, and so on. It seems like that at least a speculative paraphrasing of the argument would have been possible given the research the authors did. I was disappointed they didn't even try. All I came away with was a general idea of what the argument was about -- philosophical problems versus puzzles -- and the atmosphere of the scene at Cambridge. I wanted more.

The authors present an entertaining overview of some of the more interesting people in 20th century philosophy, especially highlighting the way Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper, and Ludwig Wittgenstein interacted. The background on Vienna is especially nice. However, this book is journalism, not philosophy, even though the publisher's blurb claims that it is an engaging mix of "philosophy, history, biography, and literary detection". None of the major philosophical problems, positions, or puzzles are presented in any depth; usually the authors hop to the next topic just as the material is getting challenging, rather than trying to engage the reader in something intellectually satisfying. They even present us with an example of the technical logical notation of Bertrand Russell (again, just as it's starting to get good) but then offer no explanation of the elements of the example, leaving the reader wondering why they bothered to show it, as if expecting a "Gee, whiz" reaction but no interest in knowing more.

There are also some curious passages where the authors make some remarkable assertions with no substantiation for them. For example, on page 239, they state that "Capitalism has not led to a greater concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands." They are very vague about whether they are contesting that capitalism has caused this situation (defensible) or whether they think that this has not actually happened (incredible). To make it worse, it's hard to tell whether Popper is making the assertion or the authors. Such vagueness is hardly philosophy.

Page 291 has some writing which is more typical of a television documentary than a serious book. Evaluating Popper, the authors state that "Many of the political ideas which in 1946 seemed so radical and were so important have become received wisdom. The attacks on authoritarianism, dogma, and historical inevitability, the stress on tolerance, transparency, and debate, the embracing of trial-and-error, the distrust of certainty and the espousal of humility -- these today are beyond challenge and so beyond debate." Oh, really? "If a resurgence of communism, fascism, aggressive nationalism, or religious fundamentalism once again threatened the international order..." If? What can they possibly mean by "If"? While one could argue that communism is hardly resurgent, I can only wonder which planet of which star system contains an international order free of the other stresses listed here. The authors idealistically describe a utopian vision that is hard to reconcile with today's world, seeming to conclude that Popper was after all a tremendous influence on world peace. I don't think so.

An amusing read, but you'll need to turn elsewhere for philosophical writing.

Karl Popper, the distinguished philosopher of science, and Ludwig Wittgenstein met only once, for perhaps ten minutes, in a tense confrontation over their diametrically-opposed views of what philosophy was for. Always excitable, Wittgenstein brandished a poker, then put it down. Soon he left the room. Did he threaten Popper with the poker? Did he storm out of the room in response to a clever quip of Popper's? Eyewitness accounts vary.

"There was a delightful irony in the conflicting testimonies. They had arisen between people all professionally concerned with theories of epistemology..., understanding, and truth. Yet they concerned a sequence of events where those who disagreed were eyewitnesses on crucial questions of fact."(p4)

The authors use this rather well-known (to academic philosophers) but murky incident as a focus for a book that takes us back to the Vienna of the Hapsburgs, where the extremely wealthy Wittgensteins moved in the highest echelons of culture and social life, and the more modest Poppers also enjoyed the wide and deep intellectual life of this city of coffeehouses and tolerance. Later (but before the storm) there was the Vienna Circle, which courted Wittgenstein and excluded Popper. (Or did he exclude himself?)

This is a book about two great men who were both Viennese, intense, egotistical, brilliant, and contentious to a degree rarely seen. To each, every discussion bearing on philosophy became a contest that each had to win, and almost invariably did. Ironically, they never met until that night in 1946, in Cambridge, England, of all places. So it is also a book about philosophy in the 20th century that brings in G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell (who was there that night), Moritz Schlick (the founder of the Vienna Circle), Rudolph Carnap, Stephen Toulmin, and a host of smaller fry.

The writing is fast-paced, as befits two journalists, and the philosophy is mostly honored in the breach, as befits a popular history. Yet we get a good feel for the issues in play on that night in Cambridge. Those of you who have struggled with Wittgenstein will find nothing here to change your view of him as a charismatic genius (but possibly totally wrong!), but the less-well-known Popper emerges as a driven man that had to win on this most esoteric of playing fields. What impressed me most about this tale was that for these men philosophy was not redemptive or illuminating. They seemed not "philosophical" in the old Socratic sense, but possessed by skewed needs that this strange cloistered university atmosphere salved, because they could show their strange skills to advantage here. Anyway, this is a delightful look at an intellectual milieu that is mostly gone, but was wonderful and strange while it lasted.

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 sally (very daring in 1860!) won the crowd, 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.

It is quite amusing that some people purchased this book in expectation of getting a philosopher's guide to playing poker.
I rather think the title contains a little joke of the authors - Wittgenstein uses 'games' as a synomym for 'puzzles' in describing his philosophy, and card games in particular was one of his favourite examples. Does this indicate that the authors lean ever-so-slightly in favour of Witt? Popper, after all, should get equal billing in this heavyweight contest. Read and judge for yourselves.

As much as I was enjoying this book, about two thirds of the way through I decided it was real trash. Then I came to the philosophical part and my opinion changed significantly. This is what I had been going to say in my review:

When an abstruse issue in science captures the public imagination it is often considered a good idea to make it more accessible by writing about the personalities involved. This 'humanizes' the issue, in other words replaces actual scientific knowledge (which is technical and hard to understand)with gossip. "Wittgenstein's Poker" takes this approach to philosophy. It is about a debate between two of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century (Wittgenstein and Popper)on the subject of whether philosophers deal with problems or merely puzzles. The authors do not take sides explicitly, but whenever they refer to a philosophical issue or idea they state it very briefly and give no indication at all as to why anyone should care about such an apparently trivial matter or bother with such banal or (seemingly) obviously false ideas. Philosophy, we are led to believe, is a complete waste of time. And philosophers are losers. Wittgenstein is presented as a callous weirdo, Popper as a resentful egomaniac. The entire philosophy faculty of Cambridge University in 1946 is also written off. If ever anyone had an unkind word to say about these men then it is quoted here, with little or nothing to offset it by way of praise or even neutral description. You can see why the book is fun to read. But it's a little odd in a book aimed presumably at those with an interest in philosphy. Or perhaps it's not so odd. Maybe pseudo-intellectuals want nothing more than an invitation to sneer at the real intelligentsia. That's what I had been going to write.

But then I came to the chapter that actually explains some of the issues (induction, probability, etc.) that concerned Popper and Bertrand Russell, and what they thought about them. This was interesting and well done. There is some real meat here for those unfamiliar with philosophy, albeit a cutlet rather than a roast. You won't learn much about Wittgenstein, though, except about his life and personality. Why anyone should care exactly what happened with the poker is beyond me, but this is a fun book and might even be an effective introduction to philosophy for some people.

Dealing with technicalities and fine points mainly of interest to the world of professional academic (and specifically Western) philsophers, this book takes us back to a peculiar incident at Cambridge, England immediately after World War II, when the mystifying analytic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein met the combative and aggressive Karl Popper, both Viennese expatriots adrift in the aftermath of the century's European convulsions. Both men were accustomed to making waves among their peers, both had reputations for innovative thought which broke new ground, and both had legions of followers and disciples. Wittgenstein, the older and more established of the two, was on his home turf (though, as always, ill at ease in the milieu he had claimed for his own) whereas Popper was something of an outsider, as he had been all his life. Popper apparently went to this philosophical tryst with the intention of overturning Wittgenstein's claim to being the gris eminence of the philosophical world and in order to replace Wittgenstein's vision with his own as the main philosophical theme around which others might rally or debate. He had, he felt, previously done just this with the so-called Vienna Circle's logical postivism which, as a philosophy, had developed under the spell of the early Wittgenstein. So Popper was looking for a reprise of his earlier success, but on a grander scale, as he matched himself up against the thinker who had been the logical positivists' idol. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, seems to have been distracted by personal issues at the time. Overall, this is a marvelous book in the background and insights it offers concerning the two combatants, and those who surrounded them. A little light on the philosophical issues, to be sure, it also takes some liberties when it purports to get us into the heads of the protagonists in the events immediately leading up to and following the encounter. Nor does it offer any real revelation as to who really did what to whom. But, as others here have noted, it is fascinating to try to reconstruct the story, based on eyewitness and near witness accounts in light of the philosophical questions these men were concerned with: what can we know and how can we know it? More, it shows us the very human sides of both men. Like all of us, I suppose, they were not always entirely likable. For my part, I found the comparisons of the Wittgensteinian and Popperian viewpoints quite edifying and that, by itself, made the read worthwhile for me. If this stuff interests you, as well, then go for it. A fine book. -- SWM

A lively, evocative and readable tour of the historical and cultural background of two modern greats, particularly if the reader is unfamiliar with the protagonists, Vienna and Cambridge. However, as other reviewers have noted, the significance of the central event is left largely undefined. Or perhaps there is no significance, and the event is simply a device for retelling the sad tale of the break-up and diaspora of Central European intellectuals under totalitarianism. An opportunity has been lost. The authors' assertion that both men made "pivotal contributions" is left largely unsubstantiated. Where professional philosophers rank them is frankly unimpressive. Which men or women of action did they influence and with what consequences? Einstein and Heisenberg they are not. "Meaning is use" or abuse!
Finally, I came away from this book with the same feeling of incompleteness as with finishing Nash's biography, "A Beautiful Mind" - the authors reveal little as to the cognitive processes of three very, very smart individuals. They remain three black boxes, at least to me.

A student of philosophy will find this book interesting for its descriptions of prominent personalities (including Russell), but this book does not contain any particularly profound discussions of philosophy. The ideas of both Wittgenstein and Popper are given a shallow explanations; in addition the basic ideas of some other philosophical schools that came and went are discussed. However, the lives of these men are interesting, and the the author's commentary on the historical importance of the ideas of these men is also interesting. In addition this book gives Wittgenstein fans some helpful information on the evolution of Wittgenstein's ideas that may not be apparent from the paucity of documents that comprise Wittgenstein's writings.