For this special episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast (produced under lockdown) Nigel Warburton interviews David Edmonds about his bestselling book, written with David Edinow, Wittgenstein's Poker. It focuses on a heated argument between the two great Viennese philosophers Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the differing accounts that were give of it by those who were there.
This is philosophy bites with me, Nigel.
Warburton, and me, David Edmonds.
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For details, go to www.philosophybites.com for this special lockdown episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast, I interviewed my co podcaster, David Edmonds, about his bestseller Wittgenstein's poker, which he wrote with John Eidenhower.
It's a brilliant book that tells the story of a ten minute meeting of two great viennese philosophers, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, at the Cambridge Moral Sciences Club in 1946.
The weird thing is that different people who were there gave completely contrasting accounts of the interaction, but what really happened?
David Edmonds, welcome to philosophy Bites.
Thank you very much.
Good to be here.
The topic we're going to discuss is your book, Wittgenstein's poker, which you co wrote.
I co wrote it with a friend and an ex colleague, John Idenau.
Yep.
So I knew about this book and I'd read it before I met you, and I was blown away by it.
It's a remarkable book and it had a huge readership.
Could you just briefly say what the main trope is, the main driving force of this book?
Perhaps I should begin by explaining how the book came about.
I'd been working with John, we were both journalists at the BBC, and John knew about my interest in Wittgenstein and he got the Times literary supplement.
One week there was a letter in the TL's saying that Karl Popper's account of his one and only meeting with Ludwig Wittgenstein was a lie.
A story had been repeated by a philosopher called John Watkins, and the correspondent wrote in and said, popper's account was a lie.