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Articles

A.J. Ayer (1910-1989)

Alistair MacFarlane considers the populariser of Logical Positivism.

Sir Alfred Ayer (Freddie to friends) achieved great success with his first book Language, Truth and Logic (1936). Written with verve and enthusiasm, it gave a clear statement of Logical Positivism. This doctrine maintained that there are only two ways in which one can make meaningful statements: first by making statements which can be verified by observation; second, by making ones which are true in virtue of the rules of language. Anything else is meaningless. In particular, the idea that philosophy is a search for first principles was “a superstition from which we are freed by the abandonment of metaphysics.

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