David Edmonds

John Eidinow

On October 25, 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, England, the great twentieth-century philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The meeting -- which lasted ten minutes -- did not go well. Their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of instant legend, but precisely what happened during that brief confrontation remained for decades the subject of intense disagreement. An engaging mix of philosophy, history, biography, and literary detection, Wittgenstein's Poker explores, through the Popper/Wittgenstein confrontation, the history of philosophy in the twentieth century. It evokes the tumult of fin-de-siécle Vienna, Wittgentein's and Popper's birthplace; the tragedy of the Nazi takeover of Austria; and postwar Cambridge University, with its eccentric set of philosophy dons, including Bertrand Russell. At the center of the story stand the two giants of philosophy themselves -- proud, irascible, larger than life -- and spoiling for a fight.

The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers

Wittgenstein's Poker

A runaway train is racing toward five men who are tied to the track. Unless the train is stopped, it will inevitably kill all five men. You are standing on a footbridge looking down on the unfolding disaster. However, a fat man, a stranger, is standing next to you: if you push him off the bridge, he will topple onto the line and, although he will die, his chunky body will stop the train, saving five lives. Would you kill the fat man? The question may seem bizarre. But it's one variation of a puzzle that has baffled moral philosophers for almost half a century and that more recently has come to preoccupy neuroscientists, psychologists, and other thinkers as well. In this book, David Edmonds, coauthor of the best-selling Wittgenstein's Poker, tells the riveting story of why and how philosophers have struggled with this ethical dilemma, sometimes called the trolley problem. In the process, he provides an entertaining and informative tour through the history of moral philosophy. Most people feel it's wrong to kill the fat man. But why? After all, in taking one life you could save five. As Edmonds shows, answering the question is far more complex--and important--than it first appears. In fact, how we answer it tells us a great deal about right and wrong.

The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us about Right and Wrong

Would You Kill the Fat Man?

"It is the morning of June 22, 1936. The professor of inductive logic at the University of Vienna, Moritz Schlick, is making his accustomed way up the wide stone stairs that lead into the University. It is 9:15 and a former student of Schlick's, Johann Nelböck, is loitering on the staircase, waiting for him. As Schlick approaches, Johann Nelböck lifts a pistol and fires four shots. A witness hears him shout, "Now you damned bastard, there you have it". Schlick dies immediately. His death spells the ending of the remarkable philosophical grouping of which he had been founder and moving force, the Vienna Circle. This extraordinary group of mathematicians, logicians, physicists, philosophers and social scientists has been holding regular meetings under Schlick's leadership since 1922. But in 1936 the political landscape in Austria is darkening, and exile for members of the Circle already beckons. It is not to be a happy experience for many of them-uprooted from Viennese culture, separated from old friends and intellectual soul-mates. The governing principle for which the Circle is best known, logical positivism, famously maintained that only two types of propositions were meaningful: those that could be verified through experience (e.g. water boils at 100 degrees centigrade) and those that were analytically true - true by virtue of the terms they employed (e.g. all bachelors are unmarried men). All other propositions were, literally, meaningless. These included propositions about God and certain propositions about aesthetics and morality (such as 'murder is wrong'). A list of names linked to the Circle reads like a Who's Who of 20th century philosophy, mathematics and science. In addition to Schlick, it includes Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, Phillip Frank, Hans Hahn, Olga Hahn-Neurath, Karl Menger, Friedrich Waismann, Herbert Feigl, Kurt Gödel, Carl Hempel, W.V.O. Quine, A J Ayer, and also, indirectly but influentially, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. For a period, Logical Positivism with its attempt to analyze 'truth', 'knowledge', and the limits of meaning, was the most fashionable movement in the world. Though its central tenets were ultimately abandoned, the Circle - especially through the exile of its key figures in the UK and US - had an enormous influence on 20th century philosophy and beyond. This book is about the origins, the short, influential life and the untimely death of the Vienna Circle, and the afterlife of its adherents"--

The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle

The Murder of Professor Schlick

An account of the 1972 chess match between Soviet chess champion Boris Spassky and American challenger Bobby Fischer offers insight into the personalities of the contenders and identifies the roles of Henry Kissinger, the KGB, and other forces in the matc

How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time

Bobby Fischer Goes to War

Nigel Warburton

Edmonds and Warburton challenged some of the world's leading philosophers to hold forth on their favorite topics for their podcast, Philosophy bites. The result is a book that give unexpected insights into hot topics spanning ethics, politics, metaphysics, aesthetics, and the meaning of life.

Philosophy Bites

Bertie Fraser

Watch out, Brussells Academy - this robot will outwit you all! If super-high-tech android Dotty can spend an entire year masquerading as a twelve-year-old schoolgirl, she could win a multi-million-pound prize that will enable her creators to continue their ground-breaking work in the development of AI. Easy-peasy, right? As Dotty navigates the social expectations of Year 7 she gets into a series of hilarious scrapes, and encounters numerous ethical dilemmas both at school and at home. Then a boy in her class discovers there's a reward for outing the robot, and becomes intent on proving that Dotty is not who - or what - she says she is. To prevent herself from being discovered, Dotty needs to put into practice everything she has learned about being human. But will it be enough...?

My First Year As a Human

Undercover Robot

Uccideresti l'uomo grasso? Il dilemma etico del male minore

Felsefe Muhabbetleri

From the bestselling coauthor of Wittgenstein’s Poker, an entertaining and illuminating biography of a brilliant philosopher who tried to rescue morality from nihilism Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius. Believing that we should be less concerned with ourselves and more with the common good, Parfit dedicated himself to the pursuit of philosophical progress to an extraordinary degree. He always wore gray trousers and a white shirt so as not to lose precious time picking out clothes, he varied his diet as little as possible, and he had only one serious non-philosophical interest: taking photos of Oxford, Venice, and St. Petersburg. In the latter half of his life, he single-mindedly devoted himself to a desperate attempt to rescue secular morality—morality without God—by arguing that it has an objective, rational basis. For Parfit, the stakes could scarcely have been higher. If he couldn’t demonstrate that there are objective facts about right and wrong, he believed, his life was futile and all our lives were meaningless. Connecting Parfit’s work and life and offering a clear introduction to his profound and challenging ideas, Parfit is a powerful portrait of an extraordinary thinker who continues to have a remarkable influence on the world of ideas.

A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality

Parfit

From the bestselling coauthor of Wittgenstein's Poker, an entertaining and illuminating biography of a brilliant philosopher who tried to rescue morality from nihilism Derek Parfit (1942-2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Regarded by some as the greatest moral thinker since John Stuart Mill, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Yet his ideas have shaped the way philosophers think about things that affect us all: equality, altruism, what we owe to future generations, and even what it means to be a person. In Parfit, David Edmonds presents the first biography of an intriguing, obsessive, and eccentric genius. Believing that we should be less concerned with ourselves and more with the common good, Parfit dedicated himself to the pursuit of philosophical progress to an extraordinary degree. He always wore gray trousers and a white shirt so as not to lose precious time picking out clothes, he varied his diet as little as possible, and he had only one serious non-philosophical interest, taking photos of Oxford, Venice, and St. Petersburg. In the latter half of his life, he single-mindedly devoted himself to a desperate attempt to rescue secular morality--morality without God--by arguing that it has an objective, rational basis. For Parfit, the stakes could scarcely have been higher. If he couldn't demonstrate that there are objective facts about right and wrong, he believed, his life was futile and all our lives were meaningless. Connecting Parfit's work and life and offering a clear introduction to his profound and challenging ideas, Parfit is a powerful portrait of an extraordinary thinker who continues to have a remarkable influence on the world of ideas.

wa māǧarā-i Šaiḫ-i Buḫārī ; dah daqīqa-i ǧadal mīyān-i dū failasūf-i buzurg

Wītgīnštāyin - pūpir

Der Wiener Kreis und die dunklen Jahre der Philosophie

Die Ermordung des Professor Schlick

Felsefe Muhabbetlerine Devam

Undercover Robot - Mein erstes Jahr als Mensch

Un saggio storico tinto di giallo, ambientato in uno dei momenti più bui della storia d’Europa, sullo sfondo della catastrofe economica e dell’ascesa di Hitler. Protagonista è il Circolo di Vienna, influente gruppo di brillanti pensatori guidato da Schlick, impegnato in una lotta contro la metafisica e le pseudoscienze in una città che veniva inghiottita da fascismo, antisemitismo e irrazionalità. Il 22 giugno 1936 Moritz Schlick, professore di filosofia, era diretto verso la sua aula per tenere lezione quando fu ucciso da un colpo di pistola sulla scalinata dell’Università di Vienna da Johann Nelböck, un ex alunno con problemi mentali. Quando Nelböck durante il processo affermò che il suo ex professore stava diffondendo una pericolosa filosofia ebraica, alcuni giornali austriaci presero le difese di quel folle gesto. Tra i membri del Circolo di Vienna ci furono Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap e l’eccentrico logico Kurt Gödel, mentre ai suoi margini si mossero altri due titani della filosofia del Novecento, Ludwig Wittgenstein e Karl Popper. Edmonds ricostruisce la storia del positivismo logico nel milieu viennese con uno stile da raffinato narratore, rievocando il sapore artistico e politico dei dibattiti nei caffè degli anni Venti.

Ascesa e declino del Circolo di Vienna

L'assassinio del professor Schlick

Over 10,000 abbreviations, shortenings, contractions and acronyms.

Chambers Dictionary of Abbreviations

Being an Apology, Or Defence of the Visible Church Upon Earth, and an Objection to All Such Persons as Doe Rebaptize Men and Women, and Against Being Covered at the Divine Exercise of Preaching the Word of God to the People, as Also Against Those that Deny to Say the Lords Prayer

A Sharp Arrovv Darted Against the Anabaptists, &c

By the authors of the national bestseller Wittgenstein’s Poker, a riveting account of the legendary 1972 chess match between Boris Spassky, the world champion from the Soviet Union, and the American challenger Bobby Fischer In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the United States and the cold war at a pivotal point, the Soviet world chess champion Boris Spassky and his American challenger Bobby Fischer met in Reykjavik, Iceland for a chess match that held the world spellbound for two months with reports of psychological warfare, political intrigue, and cliffhangers. Thirty years later, David Edmonds and John Eidinow have set out to reexamine the story we recollect as the quintessential cold war clash between a lone American star and the Soviet chess machine. A mesmerizing narrative of hubris and despair, Bobby Fischer Goes to War is a biting deconstruction of the Bobby Fischer myth, a nuanced study on the art of brinkmanship, and a revelatory cold war tragicomedy.

'The most famous chess match of all time reconstructed in a style as compelling as that of a thriller.'Irish Times For decades, the USSR had dominated world chess. Evidence, according to Moscow, of the superiority of the Soviet system. But in 1972 along came the American, Bobby Fischer: insolent, arrogant, abusive, vain, greedy, vulgar, bigoted, paranoid and obsessive - and apparently unstoppable. Against him was Boris Spassky: complex, sensitive, the most un-Soviet of champions. As the authors reveal, when Spassky began to lose, the KGB decided to step in . . . 'The authors build to a crescendo with fascinating details, taking the reader inside the two camps in Reykjavik . . . General readers will savor a marvelous portrait of East against West, with perceived societal superiority as the real prize.' Kirkus Reviews 'Pure drama . . . The most cool, ruthless and rational player the world has ever seen.' Independent 'Fischer seemed to thrive on complaints, tantrums and ultimatums, treating the exercise as a game, not of chess but of Chicken . . . It is precisely these factors that make for such a gripping read.' Sunday Times

David Edmonds

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