Wittgenstein's Poker
By David Edmonds & John Edinow
Ecco

On Oct. 25, 1946, a meeting of the Cambridge Moral Science Club turned ugly. Long the domain of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the M.S.C. had invited the up-and-coming Karl Popper, a man dedicated to demolishing Wittgenstein's thought, to present a paper entitled "Are There Philosophical Problems?" What happened next, involving a fireplace poker, a slammed door, and a snide remark that may or may not have reached its target, became one of the best-known anecdotes in twentieth century philosophy, a dramatic physical manifestation of a highly abstract intellectual battle. Yet for all its renown, in spite of the numerous witnesses present, what actually happened has remained ever since in dispute.

In "Wittgenstein's Poker," award-winning British journalists David Edmonds and John Eidinow set out to solve the mystery, efficiently conveying the gist of the philosophical dispute in just under 300 pages. Suffice to say that there are problems (which exist in the world), and there are puzzles (which exist in our words), and whether the twain shall meet is anyone's guess.

Wittgenstein was a puzzle man, convinced that apparent paradoxes could be resolved through studying the way in which they were phrased. Popper saw this linguistic fixation as akin to spending your life polishing your glasses without ever using them to view the world. In his mind, philosophical problems existed to be solved, and the lessons learned applied in the real world: in scientific research, in political science, in sociology — wherever there were pressing issues to be addressed. This was very much in the spirit of Bertrand Russell, who stood over both men (and over twentieth century philosophy in general as one of the founders of analytic philosophy) as a father figure of sorts, although playing only a small part in the book at hand.

Fortunately, you don't have to care about any of this to find "Wittgenstein's Poker" a compelling and highly entertaining read. While the philosophy can be obscure, particularly when the authors leave definitions of key terms until fairly late in the book (in favor of a brisker narrative — probably the right choice), what comes through most vividly are the personalities of the two key figures, and the worlds in which they moved — the Nazi presence looming over pre-Anschluss Austria, the cramped rooms and sooty fireplaces of postwar Cambridge University, the intellectual circles as tempestuous and cliquish as any junior high lunch table.

Wittgenstein in particular looms several sizes larger than life. At one point the wealthiest man in Austria thanks to the family's industrial fortune, and guiding light of the Vienna Circle of logical positivists, he was the kind of person who dominated every room he entered, as much by his intense physical presence as the booming authority with which he declaimed his ideas. In fact, it was with his own agreement that the Moral Science Club adopted a practice whereby he left each meeting prematurely in order that others might finally get a chance to talk (invariably about what he'd just said, of course).

Supremely self-assured, he had written his first and only book as a volunteer in the trenches of the First World War (where he won several medals for bravery). Satisfied to have solved all the problems of philosophy with this hugely influential work, he became an elementary school teacher in rural Austria, emerging again only years later to change the face of philosophy once again. One could take his brutal manner personally, and many did, but it would be a mistake to call him a bully; he would never have defiled his almost holy devotion to thought by stooping to personal attacks.

Popper, on the other hand, comes across as all too human: insecure, petty, at times seeming obsessed more with his place in the history of thought than with thought itself. Whereas Wittgenstein was the scion of one of the empire's leading families, and a boy genius under the early patronage of the esteemed Russell, Popper was strictly a striver, and lethally unclubbable. Aside from their chosen field, the only thing the two shared was the Jewish blood that sent each fleeing in turn to England — Wittgenstein relatively early, to assume his rightful place at Cambridge; Popper years later, to the slightly dimmer lights of the London School of Economics, a distinction (or lack thereof) of which he was acutely aware.

While Popper is clearly the underdog in this battle, consumed with toppling a giant who is at best dimly aware of his existence, it's hard not to root for Wittgenstein nevertheless, the philosopher as imagined by Herman Hesse prevailing over the impudent nattering of the philosopher as imagined by Al Gore. And in fact, this is most likely how the evening played out: Popper convinced in his own mind that he'd scored a direct hit, and spending the rest of his life trying to convince others of the same, while Wittgenstein went on about his business with hardly another thought on the incident (and more preoccupied anyway with his current homosexual crush, as imagined plausibly enough by the authors).

Popper's thought would go on to influence a broad swath of contemporary thought, from the scientific method to economics to the flaws inherent in totalitarianism. But the very worldliness of Popper's thought, its applicability to political and sociological issues, can make it less than inspiring. Do we really want our philosophers testifying before Congressional committees on healthcare policy, or issuing position papers on electoral reform? In a world where convenient rationalizations abound to justify virtually any political or scientific agenda and Randy Cohen's ethics column in the New York Times Sunday Magazine is the closest most people come to a life of the mind, it's nice to imagine the brooding Teutonic oracle wandering the country lanes, exploring ideas of unimaginable depth and inconceivable applicability to daily life simply because they're there to be thought.

— J. Daniel Janzen (jdaniel at flakmag dot com)