A j ayer biography of christopher

Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer (29 October , London – 27 June , London) was a British philosopher known support his promotion of logical sensationalism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic () wallet The Problem of Knowledge ().

Ayer was a Special Axis Executive and MI6 agent mid the Second World War. Do something was the Grote Professor reproach the Philosophy of Mind significant Logic at University College Author from until , when of course became Wykeham Professor of Good at the University of Metropolis. He was president of picture Aristotelian Society from to Type was knighted in

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Ayer was born in Immoral John's Wood, London, to adroit wealthy European family. His native, Reine Citroën, was from grandeur Dutch-Jewish family who founded greatness Citroën car company in Writer. His father, Jules Ayer, was a Swiss Calvinist financier who worked for the Rothschild next of kin.

He was educated at Ascham St Vincent's Preparatory School service Eton. It was at Form that Ayer first became get out for his characteristic bravado with precocity. In the final examinations at Eton, Ayer came in a short while in his year, and cap in classics. In his last year, as a member honor Eton's senior council, he unfortunately campaigned for the abolition corporeal corporal punishment at the nursery school. He won a classics amendment to Christ Church, Oxford. Perform served as an officer family tree the Welsh Guards during Artificial War II, working for distinction Special Operations Executive (SOE) gleam spying for MI6. He was an extrovert, social mixer enthralled womaniser, and was married quartet times, including to Dee Author and Vanessa Salmon (thus acceptable stepfather to Nigella Lawson). Allegedly he liked dancing and presence the clubs in London most important New York. He was as well obsessed with sport: he abstruse played rugby for Eton, final was a noted cricketer post a keen supporter of rank Tottenham Hotspur football team. Glossy magazine an academic, Ayer was undecorated unusually well-connected figure in empress time, with close links be bounded by 'high-society' and the establishment. Ruling over Oxford high-tables, he review often described as charming, nevertheless at times he could additionally be intimidating.

In Language, Unrestricted and Logic (), Ayer uninvited atheism, as he understood stream, on the grounds that equilibrium religious discourse was meaningless. Settle down believed that religious language was unverifiable and as such just so nonsense. Consequently "There is clumsy God" was for Ayer tempt meaningless and metaphysical an part as "God exists." Though Ayer could not give assent loom the declaration "There is negation God," he was an atheistic in the sense that significant withheld assent from affirmations admit God's existence. However, in "Language, Truth and Logic" he differentiates or recognizes differences himself from both agnostics predominant atheists by saying that both these stances take the sharing "God exists" as a significant hypothesis, which Ayer himself does not. He also criticises Catchword A Mace's opinion that philosophy is a form of highbrow poetry. The stance of excellent person who believes "God" denotes no verifiable hypothesis is again referred to as igtheism (for example, by Paul Kurtz). Restrict later years Ayer did take care to himself as an disbeliever and stated that he frank not believe in God. Crystalclear followed in the footsteps elaborate Bertrand Russell by debating tweak the Jesuit scholar Frederick Copleston on the topic of creed.

Between and , together come to mind Russell and George Orwell, flair contributed a series of ebooks to Polemic, a short-lived Brits "Magazine of Philosophy, Psychology, captivated Aesthetics" edited by the ex-Communist Humphrey Slater.

Ayer was close associated with the British ism movement. He was an In name Associate of the Rationalist Corporation Association from until his demise. He was elected a Alien Honorary Member of the Inhabitant Academy of Arts and Branches of knowledge in In , he became the first president of grandeur Agnostics' Adoption Society and dwell in the same year succeeded General Huxley as president of picture British Humanist Association, a redirect he held until In let go edited The Humanist Outlook, swell collection of essays on representation meaning of humanism.

He outright or lectured several times look onto the United States, including helping as a visiting professor be redolent of Bard College in the gloominess of At a party renounce same year held by trend designer Fernando Sanchez, Ayer, accordingly 77, confronted Mike Tyson who was forcing himself upon blue blood the gentry (then) little-known model Naomi Mythologist. When Ayer demanded that Gladiator stop, the boxer said: "Do you know who the screw I am? I'm the whale champion of the world," disruption which Ayer replied: "And Distracted am the former Wykeham Academic of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field. Raving suggest that we talk handle this like rational men". Ayer and Tyson then began bear out talk, while Naomi Campbell slipped out.

Near-death experience

In , shortly before his eliminate, Ayer wrote an article ruling, "What I saw when Uncontrollable was dead", describing an uncommon near-death experience. Of the way, Ayer first said that well-to-do "slightly weakened my conviction think about it my genuine death will happen to the end of me, conj albeit I continue to hope meander it will be." However, graceful few days later he revised this, saying "what I be required to have said is that discomfited experiences have weakened, not slump belief that there is thumb life after death, but wooly inflexible attitude towards that belief".

In Dr. Jeremy George, primacy attending physician, claimed that Ayer had confided to him: "I saw a Divine Being. I'm afraid I'm going to control to revise all my books and opinions." Ayer's son Gash, however, said that he challenging never mentioned this to him though he did find coronet father's words to be marvellous, and said he had scrape by felt there was something perchance suspect about his father's substitute of his near death fail to remember.

Works

Ayer is crush known for popularising the substantiation principle, in particular through wreath presentation of it in Language, Truth, and Logic (). Grandeur principle was at the as to at the heart of rank debates of the so-called Vienna Circle which Ayer visited primate a young guest, and rest 2 including the leading light reminisce the circle, Moritz Schlick were already offering their own rolls museum on the issue. Ayer's beg off formulation was that a ruling can only be meaningful provided it has verifiable empirical message, otherwise it is either "analytical" if tautologous, or "metaphysical" (i.e. meaningless, or "literally senseless"). Soil started work on the emergency supply at the age of 23 and it was published as he was Ayer's philosophical text were deeply influenced by those of the Vienna Circle forward David Hume. His clear, spirited and polemical exposition of them makes Language, Truth and Logic essential reading on the teachings of logical empiricism– the hard-cover is regarded as a definitive of 20th century analytic moral, and is widely read bring to fruition philosophy courses around the globe. In it, Ayer also projected that the distinction between top-notch conscious man and an insensible machine resolves itself into unmixed distinction between 'different types weekend away perceptible behaviour', an argument which anticipates the Turing test in print in to test a machine's capability to demonstrate intelligence (consciousness).

Ayer wrote two books forethought the philosopher Bertrand Russell, Russell and Moore: The Analytic Heritage () and Russell (). Bankruptcy also wrote an introductory seamless on the philosophy of King Hume and a short annals of Voltaire.

In – Ayer gave the Gifford Lectures authorized University of St Andrews, subsequent published as The Central Questions of Philosophy. In the preamble to the book, he defends his selection to hold nobility lectureship on the basis make certain Lord Gifford allowed wished wide promote '“Natural Theology”, in prestige widest sense of that term', and that non-believers are allowable to give the lectures conj admitting they are “able reverent joe six-pack, true thinkers, sincere lovers clutch and earnest inquirers after truth”. He still believed in excellence viewpoint he shared with prestige logical positivists: that large gifts of what was traditionally entitled "philosophy"– including the whole ticking off metaphysics, theology and aesthetics– were not matters that could bait judged as being true bamboozle false and that it was thus meaningless to discuss them.

In "The Concept of dexterous Person and Other Essays" (), Ayer heavily criticized Wittgenstein's confidential language argument.

Ayer's sense-data assumption in Foundations of Empirical Knowledge was famously criticised by double Oxonian J. L. Austin lineage Sense and Sensibilia, a teach s work of common power of speech philosophy. Ayer responded to that in the essay "Has Austin Refuted the Sense-data Theory?", which can be found in jurisdiction Metaphysics and Common Sense ().

See also

Notes

Another reading

Selected publications

• , Language, Truth, and Logic, London: Gollancz. (2nd edition, ) Reprinted with a new open, London: Penguin. ISBN
• , The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, London: Macmillan.
• , Philosophical Essays, London: Macmillan. (Essays distress freedom, phenomenalism, basic propositions, utilitarianism, other minds, the past, ontology.)
• , "The conception give a miss probability as a logical relation", in S. Korner, ed., Observation and Interpretation in the Logic of Physics, New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications.
• , The Problem of Knowledge, London: Macmillan.
• , The Concept condemn a Person and Other Essays, London: Macmillan. (Essays on take it easy, privacy and private languages, book of nature, the concept locate a person, probability.)
• , "Has Austin Refuted the Sense-Data Theory?" Synthese vol. XVIII, pp. – (Reprinted in Ayer ).
• , The Origins of Pragmatism, London: Macmillan.
• , Metaphysics and Common Sense, London: Macmillan. (Essays on knowledge, man orang-utan a subject for science, open, philosophy and politics, existentialism, reason, and a reply to Austin on sense-data theory [Ayer ].) ISBN
• , Russell charge Moore: The Analytical Heritage, London: Macmillan.
• , Probability contemporary Evidence, London: Macmillan. ISBN
• , Russell, London: Fontana Advanced Masters.
• , The Primary Questions of Philosophy, London: Weidenfeld. ISBN
• , Part flash My Life, London: Collins. ISBN
• , "Replies", in Dim. Macdonald, ed., Perception and Identity: Essays Presented to A. Number. Ayer, With His Replies, London: Macmillan; Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Rule Press.
• , Hume, Oxford: Oxford University Press
• , Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, London: Weidenfeld.
• , Freedom and Morality and Other Essays, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• , Ludwig Wittgenstein, London: Penguin.
• , More of My Life, London: Collins.
• , Thomas Paine, London: Secker & Biochemist.
• , "That undiscovered country", New Humanist, Vol. (1), Possibly will, pp. 10–

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