David Edmonds

David Edmonds is a British philosopher, writer and radio documentary maker, long at the BBC World Service. With John Eidinow he wrote Wittgenstein's Poker (2001), which reconstructs the ten-minute confrontation between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper at Cambridge in 1946 over whether there are genuine philosophical problems. His later books include Would You Kill the Fat Man? (2013) on the trolley problem, The Murder of Professor Schlick (2020) on the Vienna Circle, and a biography of Derek Parfit (2023). With Nigel Warburton he makes the podcast Philosophy Bites.

Key ideas

• The 1946 Popper–Wittgenstein clash dramatised a real dispute: are philosophical problems genuine, or puzzles created by language?
• Trolley cases expose tensions between counting consequences and intuitions against using people merely as means.
• Biography and history can illuminate philosophical ideas by showing the lives and conflicts behind them.

Major works

• Wittgenstein's Poker (2001, with John Eidinow)
• Rousseau's Dog (2006, with John Eidinow)
• Would You Kill the Fat Man? (2013)
• The Murder of Professor Schlick (2020)
• Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality (2023)

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