The 10-Minute Argument That Ended With a Fireplace Poker

Cambridge, 25 October 1946: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper met for the only time in their lives, and within ten minutes one of them was out of the door and a fireplace poker was on its way to becoming the most famous object in modern philosophy. This animated history tells the story of Wittgenstein's poker: two boys from the same Vienna, one with a palace and one with a bookshelf, the engineer who asked Bertrand Russell whether he was an idiot, the Tractatus and the claim that philosophy was solved, the Vienna Circle and its official opposition, black swans, problems versus puzzles and the fly in the fly-bottle, exile in New Zealand and a hospital porter's job in London, the Moral Sciences Club invitation, Room H3 in the Gibbs Building, the poker, the moral rule, the door, thirty witnesses with a dozen versions, and the one official record of the night: the club's minutes. Where a story is legend rather than record, the video says so. Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:43 Two Boys From Vienna 1:25 Idiot or Aeronaut? 2:05 Philosophy: Solved 2:53 The Official Opposition 3:37 Problems or Puzzles? 4:26 Exile 5:14 The Invitation 5:57 Room H3 6:38 Ten Minutes 7:21 A Moral Rule 7:45 The Witnesses 8:41 The Minutes 9:20 After the Poker Eudaimonia: history and philosophy, animated. Subscribe for the next story. #Wittgenstein #Popper #Philosophy #History