After the horrors of the First World War, the members of the progressive Vienna Circle decided that the best way to rid politics and ethics of ideology was to transform them into scientific studies--sociological studies of what people in fact desire. The Fascists hated the Circle and indeed its leader, Moritz Schlick, was gunned down on the steps of the University of Vienna in what was widely interpreted to be a politically motivated murder. Wittgenstein recoiled at the idea that politics and ethics should be scientific, saying that we couldn't speak of them at all. F.P. Ramsey argued that both the Vienna Circle and Wittgenstein were wrong, suggesting that we have to be able to evaluate our political and ethical beliefs as rules with which we meet the future. Cheryl Misak and David Edmonds discuss why these issues are more pressing today than ever. "Unlikely to be bettered." — London Review of Books