Analytic & pragmatist · 1910–1989
A. J. Ayer
Oxford philosopher who brought logical positivism to English readers
A statement is meaningful only if it is analytic or empirically verifiable; moral judgements are neither, so they express feelings of approval or disapproval rather than facts (emotivism).
Life and thought
Alfred Jules Ayer (1910–1989) was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where Gilbert Ryle was one of his tutors. At Ryle’s urging he spent early 1933 attending the Vienna Circle, and at twenty-five he published Language, Truth and Logic (1936), a short, combative book that made logical positivism famous in the English-speaking world. After wartime intelligence work he taught at University College London and from 1959 held the Wykeham chair of logic at Oxford.
Ayer’s test: a statement means something only if it is true by definition or could in principle be checked by experience. The claims of metaphysics and theology, such as “God exists”, are neither, so they are not false but literally senseless. Moral judgements fail too: “stealing money is wrong” adds nothing to “you stole that money” except a tone of disapproval, as if spoken with horror. This is emotivism. Critics pointed out that the verification principle seems to fail its own test, and late in life Ayer admitted that most of the book was false.
Works
Teachers
1900–1976Gilbert RyleRyle was Ayer’s tutor at Christ Church, Oxford, and suggested he go to Vienna in 1933.Shaped by
1882–1936Moritz SchlickPhysicist-philosopher who led the Vienna Circle1711–1776David HumeScottish skeptic who traced knowledge and morals to experience and feeling1872–1970Bertrand RussellLogician, public intellectual and Nobel laureate; lectured in China 1920–21Criticised by
1911–1960J. L. AustinSense and Sensibilia takes apart Ayer’s argument that we perceive only sense-data.Meanwhile, in other traditions
1908–1986Simone de BeauvoirFrench existentialist whose The Second Sex reshaped feminism1908–1961Maurice Merleau-PontyFrench phenomenologist of perception and the lived body1908–2009Claude Lévi-StraussFrench anthropologist who founded structural anthropology1909–1995Mou ZongsanLeading second-generation New Confucian and translator of Kant1913–1960Albert CamusAlgerian-born French writer of the absurd and of revolt1913–2005Paul RicœurFrench philosopher who joined phenomenology, hermeneutics and narrativeOn the record
The Chinese title of Ayer’s The Problem of Knowledge (1956) is given as 《知识问题》.
The book is Ayer’s 1956 study of scepticism, perception, memory and other minds. No published Chinese translation could be found, so 《知识问题》 remains a descriptive rendering of the title, not the name of an edition.
Sources: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Alfred Jules Ayer”
Ryle was Ayer’s tutor at Christ Church and suggested he go to Vienna in 1933.
Ryle was one of Ayer’s tutors at Christ Church, Oxford; having met Schlick in 1930, he encouraged Ayer to attend the Vienna Circle, which Ayer did from January to March 1933.
Sources: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Alfred Jules Ayer”