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Books

A.J. Ayer: A Life by Ben Rogers

Ralph Blumenau reviews a new biography of A.J. Ayer, the angry young man who tried to abolish metaphysics.

Chatto & Windus have done us proud by publishing within a few months two fine biographies of recent philosophers: Ignatieff’s life of Isaiah Berlin (which I reviewed in Issue 23 of Philosophy Now) and now Ben Rogers’ of Berlin’s friend, A.J.Ayer. These two men had certain things in common: their biographers stress that both had immense personal charm, and that, as Jews with foreign parents, they were both in a sense outsiders; and the authors have made links between that last fact and certain of their attitudes. But in things that matter – life-style, attitude to their Judaism, and philosophical beliefs – they could hardly have been further apart.

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