Alfred Jules Ayer

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Alfred Jules Ayer

Alfred Jules Ayer (born October 29, 1910 in St. John's Wood , London , † June 27, 1989 in London) was a British philosopher . He contributed significantly to the popularization of logical empiricism in English-speaking countries, especially through his main publications Language, Truth and Logic (1936; Language, Truth and Logic ) and The Problem of Knowledge (1956; The Problem of Knowledge).

Life

Ayer's father, Jules Ayer, came from Neuchâtel and worked in London for the Rothschild banking house and as private secretary for Alfred Rothschild . His mother, Reine Citroën, a niece of André Citroën , the founder of the car manufacturer of the same name, came from a Jewish family in Holland.

Alfred Jules Ayer attended the renowned Eton College and from 1929 studied philosophy and other subjects at Christ Church , Oxford , where he passed his exams in 1931. In 1932 he married Renee Lees and visited Vienna with her during a semester off, where he made contact with the Vienna Circle . In 1933 he returned to Christ Church College in Oxford, first as a lecturer and from 1935 as a research fellow. There he gave lectures on Wittgenstein and Carnap . Until 1935 he worked on his first major work Language Truth and Logic , which appeared in 1936. In it he combined the ideas of continental neo-empiricism, largely unknown in England, with those of conventional English empiricism ( David Hume and George Berkeley ) to form an independent empirical concept.

During the Second World War Ayer did his service as a soldier for the British Army with the Welsh Guards and the Special Operations Executive , where he interrogated prisoners of war because of his good knowledge of German. During this time he published his second important work, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge , in 1940 , which reflects his exploration of the theories of Rudolf Carnap.

From 1944 to 1946 he was initially a fellow at Wadham College in Oxford, from 1945 to 1946 dean there, and in 1946 he received the Grote Professorship for Philosophy of Spirit and Logic at University College London . In 1952 he became a member of the British Academy . As the main work of this time he published The Problem of Knowledge in 1956 , which is primarily devoted to the philosophy of mind.

In 1959 Ayer followed a call back to Oxford for the Wykeham professorship in logic. In 1960 he married Alberta Chapman. In 1963 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . From 1965 he was President of the British Humanist Association and turned increasingly to subjects of practical philosophy.

In 1970 Ayer was knighted for his services. In various respects he succeeded Bertrand Russell as a philosopher . He taught and read over several phases in the United States, a. a. in the fall of 1987 as visiting professor with the subjects Moore and Russell as well as Ryle and Austin at Bard College .

In his spare time, Ayer played cricket and was involved in the Labor Party . He publicly advocated humanism and the rights of homosexuals and professed atheism . Upon reaching the age limit, he retired in 1978, but remained connected to the university as a member of Wolfson College. In 1981 Ayer divorced his second wife, with whom he had a son, and he married Vanessa Lawson, who died in 1985. Shortly before his death, he remarried his second wife.

Ayer was active in public alongside his academic work. His television discussions (with Bertrand Russell, among others) and participation in quiz programs are known. With Russell, he also agitated against nuclear weapons.

Ayer received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Brussels (1962), East Anglia (1972), London (1978), Trent and Ontario (1980), Bard College (1985) and Durham (1988).

philosophy

Ayer, who was particularly influenced by Gilbert Ryle and Bertrand Russell , is considered a representative of analytical philosophy and a prominent figure in logical empiricism in Great Britain. In “Language, Truth and Logic” , like Carnap, he took the view that sentences of metaphysics , theology , but also ethics as value statements are meaningless and meaningless because they cannot be empirically verified ( Noncognitivism ). Such sentences are an expression of feelings and have the character of commands. Also based on the Vienna Circle, he advocated the principle of verification for statements that can be empirically verified. In his further development Ayer followed a linguistic phenomenalism and dealt epistemologically intensively with the use of language and the regulation of meanings . In an interview with Bryan Magee in 1976, he affirmed that his previous positions on logical empiricism were almost all wrong.

Works

  • Language Truth and Logic. Gollancz, London 1936; 2nd edition 1946
  • The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge. Macmillan, London 1940
  • Philosophical essays. Macmillan, London 1954
  • The problem of knowledge. Macmillan, London 1956
  • The Concept of a Person and other Essays. Macmillan, London 1963
  • The Origins of Pragmatism. Macmillan, London 1968
  • Metaphysics and Common Sense. Macmillan, London 1969
  • Russell and Moore: The Analytical Heritage. Macmillan, London 1971
  • Probability and Evidence. Macmillan, London 1972
  • Bertrand Russell. Fontana, London 1972
  • The Central Questions of Philosophy. Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London 1973
  • Part of My Life. Collins, London 1977
  • Hume. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1980
  • Philosophy in the Twentieth Century. Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London 1982
  • Freedom and Morality and Other Essays. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1984
  • More of My Life. London: Collins, London 1984
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein. Penguin, London 1986
  • Voltaire. Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London 1986, ISBN 0-297-78880-9

literature

  • A. Phillips Griffiths (Ed.): AJ Ayer Memorial Essays . Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement No. 30, Cambridge University Press 1991.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ flame0430: Ayer on Logical Positivism: Section 4. March 17, 2008, accessed February 6, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Ayer, Alfred Jules
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British philosopher and logician
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH St. John's Wood , London
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1989
Place of death London