|
|
Adult Books - Nonfiction - Philosophy
|  |   | 
Wittgenstein’s Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument between Two Great Philosophers.
Edmonds, David (author) and John Eidinow (author).
Nov. 2001. 288p. Ecco, hardcover, $24 (0-06-621244-8). 192.2.
REVIEW.
First published October 1, 2001 (Booklist).
Here is ivory-tower drama at its crackling best. On Cambridge University’s campus in 1946, two of the twentieth century’s most notable philosophers, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, squared off in an intense 10-minute exchange rumored to have led to Wittgenstein brandishing a red-hot poker. What actually happened in this now-legendary clash, and how it reflects the development of philosophy and the times, is what Edmonds and Eidinow set out to discover. Wittgenstein came to the encounter with a reputation as a “charismatic genius.” Popper, by contrast, presented a mundane picture, his academic life falling in the shadow of Wittgenstein, whose views on philosophy he fiercely derided. Both men were of Jewish extraction, displaced from Austria by the Nazi takeover. But Wittgenstein’s wealth had allowed him freedoms denied the more middle class Popper. Feelings from all these myriad gulfs spilled over into the Cambridge encounter. The authors’ profiling of the audience, which included Bertrand Russell, further illuminates what stoked the philosophical fires that day. Moving quickly from one brief chapter to another, Edmonds and Eidinow bring rich interpretation to the extraordinary incident, a BBC documentary on which is in the making. — Philip Herbst
| |
|
| Click here to find more books by this author |
| |
|
|
Features That Discuss This Work:
1. Booklist Editors' Choice : Adult Books, 2001
2. Booklist Editors' Choice : 2001
|
|
|
 |
|