Rating: 
Summary: Oddball Achievement
Review: Academic intrigue inside a jounalistic context -- not the most compatible or promising of bedfellows. Still and all, the book remains oddly entertaining despite inbuilt limitations. From the text, a smattering can be learned about the following: Anglo-Austrian philosophy, two of its most unpleasant luminaries, late Habsburg Vienna, rivalries at Cambridge, and last but not least, more than you may ever want to know about an obscure event from 1946. It's this latter that forms the book's centerpiece, and it's a testament to the authors' chutzpah that they are able to magnify this seemingly innocuous confrontation into a climactic and meaningful clash of intellects. Expectations build as the narrative meanders toward what really happened in room H-3, King's College, Cambridge, as two massive egos of the ivory tower, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, at last collide. The actual upshot is a disappointment, and its meagreness can be taken as an ironical commentary on the elusive nature of Truth and Reality, an outcome not unbefitting a subject of this kind. Then too, the authors take liberties in filling out subjective detail, at the same time, neither the material nor the chapters cohere well despite the tenacity of purpose. Also, I agree with reviewer Walter Horn that Popper's reputation is inflated to approximate Wittgenstein's, without which much of the drama would dissipate. Nonetheless, the issue between the two remains a key one: Does traditional philosophy rest on anything other than linguistic confusion. Don't expect an answer or even a preference from the authors. All in all and despite the many drawbacks, the book stands as something of an oddball achievement, though it poses a genuine risk to those who care nothing about baldness and the dead king of France.
Rating:
Summary: fun, but not deep
Review: As a few others who have reviewed this book, I too have never understood what all the fuss was about Wittgenstein. He did some important work in logic, but that's about it, in my humble opinion. After reading this book, however, I do think he would have made a superb architect/designer.
As an admirer of Popper, I had only his written account of the event. This book is wonderful in the sense that it puts that historic debate in its full philosophical & social context.
That major shortcoming of the book is the typical misunderstanding of Popper's philosophy. Popper's great idea is simple, but it is also deceptively simple. In a nutshell, it is this: since, as Hume demonstrated, induction is not valid, we can never prove our scientific theories true; we can only prove them false. Therefore, all of our scientific theories forever remain only conjectures, hypotheses, mere approximations to the truth.
But Edmonds & Eidinow, like most of Popper's critics, simply assume that Popper was naive and simplistic, and attack a caricature of his important principle. On p. 245 they write: "Popper's critics insist that he did not satisfactorily answer why one should not jump off the top of the Eiffel Tower ... unless one believes that the past is at least some guide to the future, there is no reason not to take that leap."
Popper's answer would be that we CAN have rational preferences for some theories over others. Some theories have passed tests that other theories have not. The theory that people who jump off the Eiffel Tower can fly has failed every test so far. Newton's theory of gravity is a far more successful theory, and a much closer approximation to the truth (although it is not strictly true). Hence, it is rational to prefer the second theory to the former, and not take that leap.
The subtle point here is just that supporting evidence for a theory consists in nothing more than failed attempts at refutation.
This has all been dealt with very clearly by Popper, especially in The Philosophy of Karl Popper, vol 2, edited by Schilpp. Popper is the most important philosopher of the 20th century, and his ideas should not be trivialized.
Rating: 
Summary: If Jerry Springer hosted C-span's Booknotes...
Review: Before reading this book I knew next to nothing about philospohy.
In departing from that absolute, I was able to do so in the company of two excitable thinkers. It was fascinating to observe men and ideas at lagerheads and how each formed within the context of the times. I may not be the sharpest poker in the fire, but something I kept expecting the authors to address at the conclusion was what I took to be Wittgenstein's whole point; words and ideas hold no currency in the face of violence.
Rating:
Summary: A painless introduction to Wittgenstein and Popper
Review: Before reading this book, I knew a bit about Ludwig Wittgenstein and almost nothing about Karl Popper. I learned what the title refers to--no, it has nothing to do with card games--from a book review that convinced me to buy the book. It is an allusion to an encounter between Wittgenstein and Popper that is actually rather inconsequential and ambiguous, and the book does little to clear it up. However, I enjoyed learning about 2 of the most important figures in 20th century philosophy, how they developed, what they thought, and the influence they had.
Rating: 
Summary: unsatisfying treatment of Wittgenstein and Popper
Review: I probably echo a lot of reviews on Amazon when I claim that this book is treats the philosophy of Popper so lightly that there's little mystery why books like this do not get written about modern academics very often. The authors do a number of things well: they portray post-war King's College, they show how Wittgenstein's students reverence for their teacher, and they illustrate Bertrand Russell off to the side, not being of much consequence. That being said, I really did not get a feel for what Popper and Wittgenstein were arguing about, what their lives' works were, and after all these years, who turned out be in the right. If one wants to find out what modern philosophy "is like," this book does not seem to be much help.
This is an attempt to popularize a core conflict in modern philosophy, without all that bothersome thinking. I recommend Magee's "Confessions of a Philosopher" or Scruton's "Modern Philosophy" as alternate choices.
Rating:
Summary: Biased and unenlightened account
Review: I read this book in great detail because it was well-written, not because it was well thought-out or full of expert knowledge (it wasn't). Popper's life and work get the bad end of the stick in this book, and the book misrepresents him. I do not have the book in front of me, but I can remember clearly a few examples. At the end of one of the chapters it cites what Hempel (of the Vienna Circle) was said about theory "confirmation" and imply that it pre-empts Popper's notion of theory "support" (i.e., not confirmation). There is congruence - but the mechanisms of what Hempel said and what Popper said regarding assessing theories are conceptually opposite. This book tries to compromise the novelty of Popper's ideas. Additionally, the book takes unfounded liberties with Popper the man with strong and dogmatic interpretation of WHY he did or said things (e.g., "Popper no doubt felt an uncontrollable urge to _____." - how do they infer that? It's unfounded). These liberties do not favor Popper in this book, but make him look bad (so as to "even-up" the score between him and Wittgenstein - to which I will return below). The agenda in this book is thus revealed. On Wittgenstein, this book takes liberties again but usually in the other direction - making him look good. For example, the authors align Wittgenstein with Descartes (!) in order to bolster Wittgenstein's importance.
Popper was light years beyond Wittgenstein. This is clear in their work. Popper wrote voluminously and drew from the body of philosophical work that preceded him, and built upon that foundation. He cited past work of others and showed high understanding of it. Wittgenstein was simply not scholarly. He wrote a slim volume that was almost unpublishable (but for the influence of Russell) and not much else, especially not in peer-reviewed journals. He was winging it, using his family's social status along with image and emotion (not principle and substance) as way to make his get ideas across (like an actor). Popper must have obliterated him on that day in H3 because he was speaking from a rationally-based foundation and Wittgenstein was speaking from an emotional one. Even though these authors try to cloak this reality, it shines through their transparent posturing. (This must be why they have to admit in the acknowledgments that the Mews do not necessarily agree with their interpretation.) They misquote B. Russell, too. BR did not say "He has the pride of Lucifer" - implying he was responding actively and presently to Wittgenstein. BR said "He had the pride of Lucifer" in the second half of a sentence in his autobiography (2nd volume). There should be [brackets] around this quote indicating it as such. I put this here, it looks pedantic and fickle, but it is EXACTLY the kind of nitpicking these authors do to Popper (e.g., when describing his quote regarding "the last time he saw Wittgenstein").
What's worst about this book is its transparent attempt to keep the postmodern influence of Wittgenstein alive. Popper was against such rubbish, but rather than make unfounded attacks he uses rational means to expose it as rubbish to anyone who has read his work (especially the Open Society).
These authors say Popper is declining in relevance and that Wittgenstein's influence continues to be vast. This is absolutely wrong. Who are these authors? There's no bio. Did they study philosophy in university? Are journalists qualified to position themselves as experts on philosophy? They don't have the training or experience. In social science, for example, any book on methodology (e.g., Cook & Campbell, 1979, one of the most famous ones) relies on Popper heavily. Those methods are the underpinnings of most social science research today. The vastly influential economics of Kenneth Arrow, which place importance on knowledge, are highly Popperian. Hayek (who won the Nobel Prize) states in "Hayek on Hayek" that Popper's views are closer to his than any other philosopher in history. In fact, Popper's approach literally gave Hayek an empirical framework to challenge inductive reasoning inherent in the traditional economics that he was against. And Hayek's work has been more influential than 100 Wittgensteins.
These authors reveal that Popper's work in the Open Society offers damning criticisms to any totalitarian system (religious dogmatic, centralized economy, etc.) Yet, they state in the last chapter that Popper's work is declining in relevance. Are they not paying attention to what they wrote in an earlier chapter? Are they not following the news? There are modern-day examples of totalitarian systems (religions, governments) adverse to human dignity against which Popper's ideas can stand. There are also many social science research programs that confound data with error, and Popper developed tactics to navigate such difficulties. These authors mention Kuhn, show ignorance of Kuhn (they've clearly not read Lakatos' edited volume), and move on to leave readers with yet another misleading impression.
This book belongs on the fiction shelf next to The DaVinci Code. It is not a valid source of information on the philosophies it discusses, and it is unethical for the authors to position it as such. The book has something against Popper (like Malachi Hacohen's book). Why do they give Popper a hard time? Luckily for readers, pseudo-intellectuals can't stretch truth too far. Falling into postmodernist no-man's land, these authors, by attempting to defame, fortify that which they would destroy. Popper outruns Wittgenstein. This book reacts to that notion in a way suggesting that the authors believe it to be true.
Rating: 
Summary: Did Wittgenstein threaten Popper with a fireplace poker?
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: "Wittgenstein, put the poker down!"
Review: The authors of WITTGENSTEIN'S POKER, David Edmonds and John Eidinow, are both BBC journalists, and that background makes them ideal for explaining what most casual observers would view as an obscure conflict, unworthy of great curiosity. The subject of the book is an argument between Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein, two great philosophers who probably wouldn't be considered household names (although I'm pleased to note that "Wittgenstein" is indeed present in my spellchecker). Legend has it that on October 25, 1946, a debate in a Cambridge conference room became so heated that Wittgenstein grabbed a red-hot poker from the fireplace and waved it in Popper's face. Legend also claims that despite his advantage in weaponry, Wittgenstein retreated after a particularly cutting remark from Popper. But is legend correct? And if so, why would two respected philosophers resort to taunting and the threat of physical violence? In 1998, the battle was the subject of renewed debate in the letters page of the Times Literary Supplement, where neither side could agree on what had actually occurred. The question piqued the interest of the two journalists and they attempted to uncover the truth.The poker is to the authors as Rosebud was to the newspapermen in CITIZEN KANE. It is the impetus that allows Edmonds and Eidinow to begin their journey through a scattershot look at this portion of philosophy's history. They provide a fairly decent biography of both men, leaving out many unnecessary specifics, but giving enough information for the reader to understand both men's place in the world of philosophy. Along the way we see the similarities apparent in the lives of the two men. Both were Austrian philosophers. Both fled their homelands during the Second World War because of their Jewish heritage. Both men were fierce arguers and were both convinced of their inherent correctness. That said, they were not identical. Wittgenstein's family was one of the richest in the region, while Popper came from a fairly well-to-do family that had fallen on very rough times after the First World War. In philosophy, they were diametrically opposed. Wittgenstein in his later years declared there were no fundamental philosophical problems, merely puzzles based on linguistics, tricks of language intrinsically bound to how human beings defined certain terms. The so-called problems came not from the real world, but from quirks in definitions. Popper, through his background in the philosophy of science, venomous disagreed. Philosophy progressed as other schools of thought progressed. We affirm or disregard theories, and we learn something about the universe every time that happens. The authors spend more time detailing the background to the conflict than they do on the argument itself. However, while going through the lives of the two main characters, they oftentimes related some event in the past that would directly influence the argument. As for the way they handle the poker-waving incident itself, they are careful to provide as much information as possible. They reproduce the committee minutes of the encounter, they interview those attendees who are still alive today, and they pore through the records and memoirs written in the months and years after the event. After giving us the facts, they then cut down on those items that would appear to be most at odds with the rest. It's guesswork, they are quick to point out, determining which set of hazy remembrances is the most accurate. The depth of background that the authors provide colors the way in which we view the eventual argument. Wittgenstein would often be agitated at meetings, and had in the past waved a poker, not to threaten a trembling rival, but to help emphasis positions he was taking. Popper was ruthless when it came to arguments, and would attempt to bury the opposition in a flurry of logic. It's easy to see how these two men might view each other on this afternoon, the point of their first and only meeting. A lot of the ambiguity and confusion seems to come down to the regular oddities in Wittgenstein's own behavior. Was he waving the poker in anger, or from unconscious habit? Did he storm off in disgust and humiliation, or was his hasty departure consistent with his custom of leaving discussions at seemingly random times? The authors don't give us direct answers, but give us more than enough information to make up our own minds. Perhaps the authors provided us with an over-abundance of details, maybe more than we really needed to know. While the four chapters relating the story of the two men's separate escapes from the clutches of Nazi Germany made for occasionally fascinating reading, I was at a loss to see their relevance. On the other hand, while I'm not sure that I really needed to know that Wittgenstein munched on tomato sandwiches the morning of the poker-wave, those little factoids made this book more enjoyable to read. Hardcore Wittgenstein fans who want to know as much as possible about the actual fight will find the latter sections invaluable, though they might be a bored during the earlier, biographical parts. Anyone looking to further their knowledge of these two philosophers and their confrontation on that fateful October day should pick up this book immediately. Notes: In addition to the main text, this book also includes some extras: a chronology of major events starting with the birth of Ludwig Wittgenstein on 26 April 1889 through to the death of Karl Popper on 17 September 1994; and an appendix including the series of seven letters from 1998 in the Times Literary Supplement (four of which are between Professor Peter Geach who was present at the conflict, and Professor John Watkins who wrote a memoir of Karl Popper which supported Popper's revisionist view of what had occurred) that initially sparked the interest of the authors.
Rating:
Summary: Inside Cricket on British Philosophy
Review: There is a saying that there are only 50 actors in England. One could say equally well that there are only 50 intellectuals of any particular variety, including philosophers. One difference between a continental nation such as ours and one that shares a middling island with two others is that any profession becomes a very small community.
In 1946, two philosophers, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, both Austrian Jewish émigrés, had a legendary encounter during a meeting at Cambridge University. During this encounter, Wittgenstein either gestured with or threatened Popper, the speaker, with a fireplace poker, and stormed out of the room.
This incident is the unlikely subject of a book, Wittgenstein's Poker, which I recently read.
Wittgenstein, born super-rich and turned ascetic, was a forceful personality and either an enfant terrible or a self-absorbed boor. In any event, he acquired a reputation as an iconoclastic genius and the promoter of linguistic philosophy, which posited that many of the traditional philosophical problems are meaningless, and reduced philosophy to so many linguistic puzzles.
Popper, on the other hand, was a bourgeois type who made contributions on more traditional philosophical issues. He was the author of The Open Society and Its Enemies, an anti-totalitarian work, and developed the concept of falsifiability, which holds that meaningful scientific propositions are those capable of being shown to be wrong by empirical observation or experiment.
David Edmonds and John Eidinow, the authors, have created a well-crafted and engaging book out of a series of riffs on the poker incident, Wittgenstein, Popper, their backgrounds, the world of Cambridge. It might seem that the subject would be like the famous book that told the schoolboy more than he wanted to know about penguins, but much of the book fascinates as much as any account of a human milieu in some ways like our own and in others quite different.
Today's world of grants, junkets, and the academic system of field marshals and grunts is recognizably related to the world in which Wittgenstein and Popper lived, but it has changed. This book includes biography, history - notably of pre-World-War-II Vienna, and a portrait of an era. If you are of a certain perhaps uncommon bent, this book is a good read. And the clever cover of the paperback edition alone makes the book worth picking of the shelf at a bookstore.
This book is NOT a systematic exposition of philosophical issues, but a portrait of a certain milieu, time and place.
Rating:
Summary: Taking A Poker To Popper?
Review: This book is a very enlightening mix of philosophy, biography, and cultural history. Ludwig Wittgenstein believed that philosophy involved the study of linguistic puzzles rather than actual problems. It is generally accepted that Wittgenstein was correct when he said that words have no intrinsic meaning- words only have the meaning that we assign to them . Thus, it is delusional to think that language mirrors the real world. Karl Popper, while agreeing that a lot of philosophy was about defining words and terms, thought that real problems existed and needed to be studied. For example, using inductive reasoning, all because we see the sun rise every day, can we conclude that it will also rise tomorrow? As the authors write, "Whether we have good reason to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow seems to be a problem beyond language itself." But I don't want to give the impression that this book is all heavy philosophical sledding. David Edmonds and John Eidinow give us just enough philosophy so that we feel we know where Wittgenstein and Popper "stood" on some basic issues. For the purposes of this book we don't have to go much further, because a lot of this dispute can be attributed to just the clash of two giant egos. Both men were arrogant and blunt, and neither suffered fools gladly. (Of course, by their standards almost everyone else was a fool!) In a subtle manner, the authors introduce a philosophical question of their own: What can we really know with certainty? The authors were able to contact nine of the men who were present at the famous meeting of October 25th, 1946. Everyone remembers things differently. Some people thought Wittgenstein waved the poker around in a menacing manner. Other people thought not- they thought he had just absentmindedly picked it up, as he had done at previous meetings, while thinking about things. Everyone agreed that Wittgenstein had "stormed" out of the meeting early. However, Popper remembered a sarcastic remark that he made as being the cause. Other people remembered Wittgenstein leaving in a huff after exchanging sharp words with Bertrand Russell, and that Popper's remark came after Wittgenstein had already gone. Of course, human beings are subjective rather than objective. Popper wanted to think that he had caused Wittgenstein to "flee." Some of the people present were pro-Popper and some were pro-Wittgenstein. As interesting as all this was to read about, I was even more fascinated by some of the biographical and cultural information. For example, three of Wittgenstein's brothers had committed suicide- and he himself said that a day didn't go by where he didn't think of killing himself. On the lighter side, besides reading heavyweights such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, he also enjoyed Agatha Christie and P.G. Wodehouse. As Wittgenstein and Popper were both of Jewish ancestry (though both families had converted to Christianity) and both from Vienna, the authors write quite a bit concerning what it was like to be Jewish in early and mid-20th century Austria e.g- assimilation and anti-Semitism; conditions before WWI and after; the situation before and after Hitler came to power, etc. Wittgenstein came from a very wealthy family. The family was able, with a "contribution" of 1.7 tons (yes, tons) of gold, to induce the Nazis to classify the Wittgensteins as "not sufficiently Jewish" to be "bothered." Thus, family members did not suffer the fate of their poorer brethren. (By comparison, 16 of Popper's relatives became victims of the Holocaust.) The authors try to make a case that part of the reason sparks flew between the two men was that Wittgenstein looked down (socially) on Popper and Popper resented the elitist and aristocratic Wittgensteins. I didn't buy this argument. The two philosophers had never met before the famous evening and Wittgenstein claimed that he didn't even know who Popper was (not unreasonable, as Popper was not famous at that time and had been off teaching in New Zealand). Besides, both men were so arrogant and egocentric that they were bound to rub each other the wrong way. During the course of the book, the authors happen to mention that one of them was a student of Popper- but they never reveal which one. We are left to guess. A variation on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?
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