Wittgenstein or Popper?

Answer 1

Popper. His bucket and searchlight crack me up :-)

Answer 2

They are different. But many of their views weren't as different as some (including they, themselves) thought. For example, they both had the sense to avoid the Vienna Circle. Popper was never invited. Wittgenstein, although worshipped by the members of the Circle, never attended a meeting. They were both wary misplaced arguments from authority, no matter where those arguments originated.

As the famous argument between the two which almost came to blows, yes they did have extreme and fundamental disagreements about the nature of philosophy. Popper felt that there were fundamental problems with the deepest nature of philosophy. Wittgenstein felt that philosophy was only a set of puzzles, nothing more.

Do we believe Popper's account of what happened that night? Probably not, but I'm not sure that it matters.

Who would I rather have dinner with? Wittgenstein definately! Even though he ate only porridge most of the time. And I might be in danger from attack with a hot poker.

So if I HAD to take sides, guess my vote would have to go to Wittgenstein....But philosophers should realise that if Wittgenstein is right, all philosophy is a waste of time.

Answer 3

Karl Popper is perhaps best known for repudiating the classical observationalist-inductivist account of scientific method by advancing empirical falsifiability as the criterion for distinguishing scientific theory from non-science; and for his vigorous defense of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism which he took to make the flourishing of the "open society" possible.

Ludwig Wittgenstein extended Russell's notion of logical analysis by describing a world composed of facts, pictured by thoughts, which are in turn expressed by the propositions of a logically structured language. On this view, atomic sentences express the basic data of sense experience, while the analytic propositions of logic and mathematics are merely formal tautologies.
Anything else is literally nonsense, which Wittgenstein regarded as an attempt to speak about what cannot be said.
Metaphysics and ethics, he supposed, transcend the limits of human language. Even the propositions of the Tractatus itself are of merely temporary use, like that of a ladder one can discard after having climbed up it: they serve only as useful reminders of the boundaries of our linguistic ability. This work provided the philosophical principles upon which the logical positivists relied in their development of a narrowly anti-metaphysical standpoint.

So Popper, definitely

Answer 4

popper was fake, deeply idealist, imperialist. his political views are remarkably similar to George w. Bush's. young Wittgenstein is not to be compared to this stupid thief, his ideas in philosophy of science are not original, he was a windbag who thought himself better than Aristotle and Hegel. but I'm not sure about older Wittgenstein.

Answer 5

Hmm...I always liked Wittgenstein.

"And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel"

Answer 6

Popper- I had to write an essay on him for my Archaeological debate module and got a 1st for it...so I owe the guy!