David Edmonds
Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers

Sackler Museum
485 Broadway, Cambridge
Tickets are required and available for free at bookstore.

On October 25, 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, England, famed philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face-to-face for the first and only time. The encounter lasted just ten minutes, and did not go well.

Their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of instant legend. Almost immediately, rumors spread around the world that the two great philosophers had come to blows, armed with red-hot pokers. Twenty years later, when Popper wrote an account of the incident, he portrayed himself as the victor, provoking intense disagreement. Everyone present seems to have remembered events differently. What really happened in those ten minutes? And what does the violence of this brief exchange tell us about these two men, modern philosophy, and the significance of language in solving our philosophical problems?

This engaging mix of philosophy, history, biography and literary detection has been winning rave reviews with its depiction of these influential, larger-than-life men and the world in which they lived.

This event will be held at 6pm the Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway, Cambridge. Tickets are available at Harvard Book Store. Please check pokers at the door.