Stoking the Flames: Wittgenstein, Popper, and Philosophy Under Fire

Occasional Symposium

Online (via Zoom)

Registration for this event is essential. Please registers via this link

https://newcastleuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/1unB0kxGQXyeL5ATBCAN7A

Professor James Klagge – Virginia Tech

Professor Marie McGinn – University of York

Dr Dawn Wilson University of Hull

Chair: Dr Ian Ground – Vice-President British Wittgenstein Society

The infamous “Wittgenstein’s Poker” incident of 1946 remains shrouded in mystery and disagreement. However, its philosophical stakes are clearer. In a room at King’s College, Cambridge, three of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers —Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper, and Ludwig Wittgenstein—engaged in a heated argument about the nature of philosophical questions. Are they substantial questions – akin to scientific questions about the workings of the world, except broader and deeper? This was something like Popper’s view. Are they mere linguistic puzzles and because merely linguistic, in some way trivial or pointless? This was the view that Popper and perhaps Russell attributed to Wittgenstein. 

Or was Wittgenstein actual view, a third position? –  philosophical problems arise out of language –  how we think and speak  – but are, for just that reason, significant and profound. How do we best understand Wittgenstein’s actual position? Did Popper and Russell, as Wittgenstein believed, entirely misunderstand what was at stake?

The question of how to interpret Wittgenstein’s account of the nature of philosophy becomes even more compelling when we examine the reception of his ideas—both within professional philosophy and across broader cultural spheres, including the arts.

Wittgenstein is widely celebrated as the most important philosopher of the 20th century. Yet, paradoxically, his influence on contemporary professional philosophy is sometimes described as marginal. Why might this be? How is his ambivalent status in contemporary philosophy connected with the 1945 argument?

Beyond academia, Wittgenstein has become an iconic figure—intense, enigmatic, and driven—capturing the imagination of writers, artists, and filmmakers. Unlike other philosophers, he has inspired novels, poetry, plays, paintings, music, sculptures, and film.

Wittgenstein’s philosophy invites broader reflection on the relationship between philosophy and the arts:

• Can the arts illustrate, promote, or even perform philosophical work?
• Can they transform our ways of thinking—and ourselves—in ways that resonate with Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophical investigation?

A panel of philosophers and scholars will explore these and related questions, offering fresh perspectives on Wittgenstein’s thought, its reception, and its broader cultural impact.

Join us for a rich and thought-provoking conversation about one of the most intriguing and influential philosophers of the modern era.

2nd March, 2025

@ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

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Participants Selected Bibliography

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