num_pages: 267
description: On 25 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 did not go well.Their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of instant legend. Almost immediately, rumours spread around the world that the two great philosophers had come to blows, armed with red-hot pokers. But precisely what happened in those ten minutes remains the stuff of intense disagreement.Twenty years on, when Popper wrote up his account of the incident, he portrayed himself as the victor. But everyone present seems to have remembered events differently. What really went on in that room? And what does the violence of this brief exchange tell us about these two men, modern philosophy, and the difference between problems and puzzles?
language: English
title: Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers
titlecomplete: Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers
characters: Karl Popper, Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein
genres: 20th Century, History, Psychology, Biography, Science, Philosophy, Biography Memoir, Politics, Nonfiction, British Literature
ratings_count: 3075
awards: awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Guardian First Book Award
publisher: Faber & Faber