Wittgenstein's Poker: The Movie

Not many books about philosophers become bestsellers, but one that did was David Edmonds and John Eidinow's Wittgenstein's Poker, which came out in 2002. Now there are plans to produce a short animated film inspired by it.

The book tells the story of a famous encounter between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper:

On 25 October 1946, Sir Karl Popper (at the London School of Economics), was invited to present a paper entitled "Are There Philosophical Problems?" at a meeting of the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club, which was chaired by Ludwig Wittgenstein. 

The two started arguing vehemently over whether there existed substantial problems in philosophy, or merely linguistic puzzles—the position taken by Wittgenstein. In Popper's, and the popular account, Wittgenstein used a fireplace poker to emphasize his points, gesturing with it as the argument grew more heated. 

Eventually, Wittgenstein claimed that philosophical problems were non-existent, in response, Popper claimed there were many issues in philosophy, such as setting a basis for moral guidelines. Wittgenstein then thrust the poker at Popper, challenging him to give any example of a moral rule, Popper (later) claimed to have said:

Not to threaten visiting lecturers with pokers

upon which (according to Popper) Wittgenstein threw down the poker and stormed out. 

Wittgenstein's Poker collects and characterizes the accounts of the argument, as well as establishing the context of the careers of Popper, Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell. This meeting was the only time the three were in the same room together.

The story grew with its telling over the years, particularly when Popper told it, and I don't suppose it was as violent as the video above suggests.

Nevertheless, I am delighted by news of the plan to make an animated film of the encounter. You can read all about it and support it on the film's Kickstarter page.

If you want to know more about the background to the encounter between Popper and Wittgenstein, which the book uses to open up the history of philosophy in the 20th century, then I recommend a video of David Edmonds speaking at a book event in the US.

At the start, he talks about tracking down the other people who were present at that meeting of the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club.

One of them was the philosopher Margaret Masterman, who was one of Wittgenstein's inner circle of students. I must have come across a paper of hers when I was at York, because I can remember reading the book in which it was included: Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave.

Later Masterman worked on the problem of teaching computers to understand everyday human language. Her work here has been influential and she deserves to be better known than she is.

And, wonderfully, she was the daughter of my favourite Edwardian Liberal, Charles Masterman.