Ayer Arg Philosophers

First Published in 1999. The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessment and history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher of major influence and significance. Alfred Jules Ayer was born on 29 October 1910 and still flourishes. Ayer’s philosophical writings to date include fourteen books (not to mention those he has edited) and a host of essays, articles, and reviews.

Freddie Ayer (1910-89) was one of the most influential philosophers of his generation, while his television and radio appearances, especially in the original `Brains Trust', made him Britain's first 'media philosopher'. In this lively, penetrating study - the first, fully authorised, biography - Ben Rogers relates Ayer's ideas to his remarkable life, strangely troubled beneath its glamorous surface. The 'quintessentially British' thinker was the only child of a Swiss-French father and Dutch-Jewish mother; after a lonely childhood he found his true role at Oxford. A friend of Isaiah Berlin, and a follower first of Bertrand Russell, and then of Wittgenstein. Ayer won fame at twenty-four with his brilliantly iconoclastic LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND LOGIC - an essential text for students ever since. Ben Rogers shows Ayer at work, in London, Oxford and America, and also at play, as a passionate follower of cricket and football, a great dancer, a lover of witty conversation and beautiful women. Married four times, Ayer was a leading figure in London 'cafe society', yet he was also a controversial public figure and broadcaster, vehemently left-wing in the 1930s, and later President of the British Humanist Association and the Homosexual Law Reform Society. Colourful, inimate, zestful and often poignant, this is a powerful biography.

A. J. Ayer, who died in 1989, was acknowledged as one of Britain's most distinguished philosophers. In this memorial collection of essays leading Western philosophers reflect on Ayer's place in the history of philosophy and explore aspects of his thought and teaching. The volume also includes a posthumous essay by Ayer himself: "A Defence of Empiricism." These essays are undoubtedly a fitting tribute to a major figure, but the collection is not simply retrospective; rather it looks forward to present and future developments in philosophical thought that Ayer's work has stimulated.

This, the 21st volume in the Library of Living Philosophers, is more than Sir Alfred Ayer's final word on the philosophical issues that preoccupied him for more than sixty years; the list of contributors is a roll-call of some of the greatest living figures in philosophy, each expertly addressing a key problem arising in Ayer's work. Most of the critical papers are answered directly and in detail by Sir Alfred-he completed his replies to 21 of the 24 papers before his death. Contributors include: A. J. Ayer, Evandro Agazzi, James Campbell, David S. Clarke, Michael Dummett, Elizabeth Eames, John Foster, Dimitri Ginev, Paul Gochet, Martin Hollis, Ted Honderich, Tscha Hung, Peter Kivy, Arne Naess, D. J. O'Connor, Desiree Park, David Pears, Azarya Polikarov, Hilary Putnam, Francisco Miró, Quesada C., A. Anthony Quinton, Emanuele Riverso, Ernest Sosa, T. L. S. Sprigge, Barry Stroud, and David Wiggins.

If you can't prove something, it is literally senseless - so argues Ayer in this irreverent and electrifying book. Statements are either true by definition (as in maths), or can be verified by direct experience. Ayer rejected metaphysical claims about god, the absolute, and objective values as completely nonsensical. Ayer was only 24 when he finished LANGUAGE, TRUTH & LOGIC, yet it shook the foundations of Anglo-American philosophy and made its author notorious. It became a classic text, cleared away the cobwebs in philosophical thinking, and has been enormously influential.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.