Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, by most accounts two of the smartest philosophers in modern history, only met once. The occasion was a meeting of The Cambridge Moral Science Club – a discussion group for the university’s philosophers and philosophy students – held on the chilly evening of Friday October 25 1946. Popper was the guest speaker, up from London to deliver an innocuous-sounding paper, Are There Philosophical Problems? Wittgenstein, chairman of the club, was one of the attendees. And if the Popper/Wittgenstein combination wasn’t enough for the lucky students, also present was Bertrand Russell, a man who for decades had been a household name as a philosopher and radical campaigner.

It quickly became apparent that there was a fundamental disagreement between the two main protagonists. One felt that there were only problems; the other that there were only puzzles. The discussion became heated. Wittenstein, finally exasperated, picked up a poker and started brandishing it wildly, shouting, ‘Popper you are wrong! You are wrong!’ The rising tension was only released when Russell, apparently, stepped in to intervene and persuade Wittgenstein to put the poker down. At which point, Wittgenstein stormed off in a huff, never to return.

The first moral of the story is that even extremely intelligent people can find themselves married to a view and no amount of facts or argument will dissuade them. Rather, they will wave a heavy iron weapon at anyone who challenges their outlook.

The second moral is that the world of philosophy had, by 1946, essentially devolved to become largely meaningless. Smart people arguing vehemently over the wrong question.

Sadly for Popper, Wittgenstein and Russell, another philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel had died just over a century earlier. Arguably, his death signalled the last breath of meaningful philosophy. Not that anyone in the philosophy community seems, even today, to have recognised or understood the fact.

I’m pretty certain that had Hegel been basking in the firelight in that dusty Cambridge meeting room he’d have metaphorically banged Popper and Wittgenstein’s heads together and shouted, ‘it’s not either/or you blithering idiots’.

Had Hegel lived another hundred years and done a bit of Descartes-channelling, he might have gone a step further and drawn this picture…

And if they still didn’t get it, I think he would have been well within his rights to ask for the poker. If – thwack – the – thwack – question – thwack – contains – thwack – or – thwack – implies – thwack – the word – thwack – ‘or’ – thwack, thwack – it’s – thwack – the – thwack – wrong – thwack – question – thwack, thwack, thwack – dummy.