The confrontation, it should be
>noted,
>was not a match between equals. At 57, the charismatic Wittgenstein was
>already the uncontested king of British academia,
A accolate he would reject violently, since he hated academiz and was totally alienated from anything British.
surrounded by
>students,
>emulators and fans. Popper, 44, boldly faced him alone.
Popper was no neophyte. His Logix der Forschung has been published ten years earlier and was acknowledged to be an important book. And W had published only the Tractatus at that point; the Investigations was still a box of scraps.
having spent the war years in New Zealand.
>
> The seminar progressed as follows: Popper began his lecture,
>an
>explicit critique of Wittgenstein - and was immediately interrupted. At
>some
>point, Wittgenstein seized the fireplace poker and began flourishing it.
>The
>elderly Russell, then 74,
Russell was 74, but I should be so elderly at 74; he was younger at 74 than most people are at 24.
made an uncharacteristic effort to
>intervene,
>asking Wittgenstein to calm down.
Oh, he was always doing that with W, who was tempermental.
>
> >According to Popper, Wittgenstein then tauntingly challenged
>him to provide
>one example of a valid moral rule. Popper, in a brilliant retort, quickly
>replied, "Here's a moral rule: not to threaten visiting lecturers with
>pokers." Wittgenstein, insulted and angry, immediately walked out.
>
> But Wittgenstein's followers do not credit Popper with this
>total victory. They concede that the revered teacher indeed left in a rage,
>but claim that his students continued his line of argumentation, repeating
>the demand that Popper give an example of a moral rule. Popper's
>spontaneous
>response ("Not to threaten visiting lecturers with a poker") is also part
>of
>this version, though he is said to have spoken only after his target -
>Ludwig Wittgenstein - had left the premises.
Well, this isn't so brilliant. And anyway, how hard is it to give an example of a valid moral rule? Not that W, who thought ethics more important than anything, would deny that there were many such rules or at least precepts.
>
> The argument in the
>Cambridge seminar room (known to this day as "The Moral Science Club")
When I was at Kings I spoke there on "Freedom is the Recognition of Necessity." I forget what I said, it wasn't my best.
The two philosophers, according
>to the
>book, lived their lives on a collision course.
Not exactly; they hardly intersected.
>
> how, after the Anschluss [the union of Austria with
>Germany in 1938], Wittgenstein negotiated with the leaders of Nazi Germany,
>trying to buy his sisters Arian pedigrees for an enormous sum of money.
Is this true? I thought he gave away his money after WWI, trued to live as a village schoolteacher before Russell badgered him into coming back to Cambs.
>
> >Wittgenstein reigned at Cambridge for another five years,
>until his death of
>cancer at age 61.
W had a cult--Rush Rhees, Alice Ambrose, GEM Anscomb--but Cambridge philosophy revolved around Russell and Moore, who could not have been more different from W in almost every respect.
Popper continued teaching at the London School of
>Economics, made a name for himself, and was eventually knighted. He is now
>known as the 20th century's greatest philosopher of science.
According to whom? Popperians, I suppose. He's important, but I had to persuade my phil of sci teacher at Michigan to include some Popper in his course. If I had to name The 20th C Greatest Philosopher of Science, I'd have to say Kuhn.
>
> >
> What was this "rubbish"? Briefly put, Karl Popper claimed that
>philosophy had a right to exist. Philosophers, he argued, should continue
>to
>concern themselves with the same all-encompassing problems they had always
>been interested in:
I guess I am a Wittgensteinian on this one, or anyway a Rortyian. The following list of questions would have been mysterious to Plato or Aquinas, and most of it would have been mysterious to Descartes.
What guarantee do we have that the sun will come
>up
>tomorrow (the induction problem)? Do human beings have a soul, that is, a
>non-material element? Do they have free will and choice? What accounts for
>scientific progress? What is the fundamental difference between physics and
>psychology? What allows a democratic society to endure? What is justice,
>and
>what moral rules are valid? What is the role of metaphysics?
>
> Wittgenstein, on the other hand, believed that all of these
>subjects should be abandoned.
That is inaccurate. He thought, rather, that philosophical inquiry into many of these subjects reflected mistaken linguistic traps, and that philosophy had a role, namely, to show us that once we viewed things aright, we'd see this. But not that the subjects were unimportant or even that we shouldn't philosophize, rather that the aim of philosophy was different than stating philosophical propositions.
>
> Popper was blatantly dismissive of this approach, known as
>linguistic philosophy.
That's not right. W's view has affinities with what has been called "linguistic philosophy," the analysis of language one sees in writers like Austin and (very differently) Ryle. But they did not hold forth the promise that doing philosophyt as W thought it should be done could transform one's life as opposed to claifying one's ideas.
The book's boldness, he adds, lies in its "new and
>clear
>presentation of the question who was right, Popper or Wittgenstein. In
>other
>words, the book assumes that the question has one correct answer, with no
>possibility of compromise."
Both could be wrong, and I think are.
Popper may have
>prevailed in
>that Cambridge quarrel, but the professional philosophers of our own time
>find Wittgenstein far more interesting,
Well, he is.
> So why isn't Popper as popular?
>
> "Because he committed the grave sin of assuming his readers to
>be independent people, capable of thinking and deciding for themselves.
>Popper addresses the readers rather than what's fashionable."
This is crap. W never cared a hoot for fashion. It's just that he's a far greater and deeper thinker.
>
> Agassi provides a counter-example: "Look, when Saul Kripke,
>one
>of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, begins a lecture,
>he
>always notes that his subject matter is important and fashionable, and
>supports this claim with external proof.
Nonsense. I knew Kripke at Tigertown, sat in on the classes that became the Wittgenstein book, have heard him talk a score of times outside that context over 25 years, and never had I once heard him do this, as opposed to just launching into the topic. Anyone who knows Kripke knows he's far too wierd to do what Assagi claims.
He always does this, and
>I'm not
>saying it behind his back, he admits it himself. Popper never took what was
>fashionable into account. He ignored fashion, or scorned it."
>
> Trends, says Agassi, have a way of avenging themselves on
>those
>who disregard them. "Popper demanded that his reader ignore fashion - and
>now fashion is ignoring him.
>
> "Take a person who has an academic position, for whatever
>reason. He or she has ordinary training in philosophy and knows his
>Wittgenstein. That person can produce academic articles out of his sleeve,
>and if he polishes them a little, he has a good chance of getting them
>published. When you write about some obscure aspect of Kant, you can have
>it
>published in a special journal for Kant's fans. If it's about Heidegger or
>Wittgenstein, there are many journals you can send it to. But when you
>write
>about Popper, almost no journal will accept it, unless what you've written
>is brilliant and important enough to be irresistible."
This is bizzare. Just read through a few back issuesof the British J. for the Phil of Sci, or the US Journal Phil ASci, Popper is discussed all the time. As for Kant scholarship, actually outsude of Kantstudien, there isn;t that much; history is hard time finding a place for publication. Popperians are a big force, especially in England, wherreas today there are no Wittgensteinians.
> >The positivists believe to this day that it is their job
>to defend science.
>Popper, who viewed science as Western civilization's greatest
>accomplishment, not only did not defend science, but stated that its
>greatness lay in the way it improves when brought under attack."
What positivists? I studied with Hempel; he was the last one.
>
> >
> Did you speak with him about Zionism?
>
> "I did. He was hostile to it, saw it as a return to
>tribalism."
>
Good for him!
>
>
> Did you also known about the incident with Wittgenstein in
>Cambridge?
>
> "Of course, it was no secret. I wrote about it in my
>autobiography. I think the authors' attitude towards Popper's version of
>the
>events is mistaken, and it's an unfortunate flaw in their work. They
>concluded that Popper's version was false, and claim his account
>aggrandized
>his victory and that he persuaded himself of its truth. The authors rely on
>two witnesses, Peter Geach and Casimir Lewy, who claimed back in 1974, when
>Popper's version was publicized, that `Popper lied.' They accused him, just
>like that, without specifying what he had lied about and what had actually
>happened. That speaks volumes."
Peter Geach is constitutionally incapable of telling a falsehood.
>
>Russell, a very gentle person,
Are we talking about the same guy?
intervened and said,
>`Ludwig, sit
>down.' To me that says everything.
>
> "You also have to remember that in the 1940s Wittgenstein was
>the king of British philosophy. Bertrand Russell said that in those days
>people treated him, Russell, as though he were already dead, not a very
>pleasant feeling.
Well, honestly, philosophically he was. Had to know it, too.
Almost no philosopher in England in those days
>dared to
>challenge Wittgenstein's authority, and even people who agreed
>wholeheartedly with Popper acted as though they were Wittgenstein's
>followers. It was a time of opinion-terror without parallel.
Utter rubbish. W had charisma and prestige as well as a genius, but he was no academic macher; the aura just clung to him. And Moore, the other heavyweight at Cambridge, could not be intimidated bya nyone or anything. This is Popperian paranoia.
>
> "I came to England in 1952 and was told what my views should
>be
>if I wanted to succeed. I had a good friend there, a dear man, who wrote a
>book about Wittgenstein immediately after finishing his doctorate and found
>himself under severe attack. He killed himself. His name was David Pole,
>and
>he dared to claim in his book that Wittgenstein was a conservative."
Well, duh, and lots of people remarked on it. W said that philosophy "leaves everything the same," why should conservatism have been a surprise? He flirted with political radicalism, was friends with Sraffa, but philosophically, his views are conservative.
>
> "I don't accept that. Popper and Wittgenstein were rivals.
>They
>fought for the inheritance of Bertrand Russell."
Nonsense. W thought Russell a fool. Couse he thought everyone a fool.
jks
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