EVENT
The Poker Incident
The October 1946 meeting at Cambridge's Moral Science Club in which
Popper and Wittgenstein confronted each other over the existence of genuine philosophical problems — with a fireplace poker somewhere in the mix, and no two eyewitnesses agreeing on what happened.
On October 25, 1946,
Karl Popper gave a paper at Cambridge's Moral Science Club, chaired by
Ludwig Wittgenstein. The topic was whether there are genuine philosophical problems. Popper argued there were — listing examples like the problem of
induction and the problem of the existence of the external world. Wittgenstein interrupted repeatedly, arguing that these were not genuine problems but linguistic confusions. The dispute escalated. Wittgenstein, growing angry, picked up a fireplace poker — what he was doing with it became the subject of decades of dispute. According to Popper's later account, Wittgenstein demanded an example of a moral rule, at which point Popper said, "Not to threaten visiting lecturers with pokers." Wittgenstein threw down the poker and left the room.
Bertrand Russell, also present, apparently said something about Wittgenstein's temper. Other accounts differ substantially on what was said, what was done, and what the poker was for. The incident has become philosophy's