Alfred Jules Ayer
Sens mają tylko zdania, które można sprawdzić doświadczeniem lub które są prawdziwe z definicji – sądy moralne jedynie wyrażają nasze uczucia.
Umiejscowienie
Spopularyzował pozytywizm logiczny w Anglii: „Language, Truth and Logic”.
Kluczowe idee
- Zasada weryfikacji
- Emotywizm
Nauczyciele: Gilbert Ryle
Wpływ
Pod wpływem 6
David Hume
pod wpływem
Ayer modelled his split of analytic and empirical propositions on Hume’s relations of ideas and matters of fact, quoting his ‘commit it then to the flames’ (1936). A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936); Hume (1980); D. Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748); SEP “Alfred Jules Ayer”
Źródło: także w InPhO · InPhO
David Hume › 1711–1776
Bertrand Russell
pod wpływem ✓
Ayer named Russell, with Wittgenstein, as source of Language, Truth and Logic (1936) and used his method of logical construction to reduce material things to sense-contents. A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936), preface; Russell and Moore: The Analytical Heritage (1971); SEP “Alfred Jules Ayer”
Bertrand Russell › 1872–1970
Moritz Schlick
pod wpływem
Ayer, sent to Vienna by Ryle, attended meetings of Schlick’s circle (1932–33) and brought its verification principle and rejection of metaphysics to Britain (Language, Truth and Logic, 1936). A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936); Part of My Life (1977); M. Schlick, “Meaning and Verification”, Philosophical Review 45 (1936); SEP “Alfred Jules Ayer”
Źródło: szkic AI
Moritz Schlick › 1882–1936
Ludwig Wittgenstein
pod wpływem
Ayer took from the Tractatus (1921) the view that logical truths are tautologies saying nothing about the world and extended it to mathematics (Language, Truth and Logic, 1936). A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936); L. Wittgenstein, Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung (1921); SEP “Alfred Jules Ayer”
Źródło: także w InPhO · InPhO
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Rudolf Carnap
pod wpływem ✓
Ayer took up Carnap’s elimination of metaphysics by logical analysis of language and his view of philosophy as a department of logic (Language, Truth and Logic, 1936). A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936); R. Carnap, “Überwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache”, Erkenntnis 2 (1932); SEP “Alfred Jules Ayer”
Źródło: także w Wikidanych · Wikidata
Rudolf Carnap › 1891–1970
Gilbert Ryle nauczyciel(ka)
nauczyciel(ka) ✓
Ryle was Ayer’s tutor at Christ Church, Oxford (1929–32), and suggested that he spend 1932–33 in Vienna with the Vienna Circle, the background to Language, Truth and Logic (1936). A. J. Ayer, Part of My Life (1977)
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Gilbert Ryle › 1900–1976
Krytyka
Krytyka ze strony 4
Carl Gustav Hempel
krytyka ze strony
Hempel argued that Ayer’s verifiability criterion, even as revised in 1946, either admits metaphysics or excludes scientific laws (‘Problems and Changes in the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning’, 1950). C. G. Hempel, “Problems and Changes in the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning”, Revue Internationale de Philosophie 11 (1950), 41–63; A. Church, review of Ayer, Journal of Symbolic Logic 14 (1949)
Źródło: szkic AI
Carl Gustav Hempel › 1905–1997
John Langshaw Austin
krytyka ze strony
Austin attacked the sense-datum theory of Ayer’s Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940), above all the argument from illusion (Sense and Sensibilia, lectures published 1962). J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, ed. G. J. Warnock (1962); A. J. Ayer, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940); Ayer’s reply: “Has Austin Refuted the Sense-Datum Theory?”, Synthese 17 (1967)
Źródło: szkic AI
John Langshaw Austin › 1911–1960
Wilfrid Sellars
krytyka ze strony
Sellars’s ‘Myth of the Given’ critique targeted sense-datum theories; he examined Ayer’s view of sense-datum talk as ‘another language’ (‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’, 1956, §§ 8–9). W. Sellars, “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” (1956), part II, §§ 8–9; A. J. Ayer, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940)
Źródło: szkic AI
Wilfrid Sellars › 1912–1989
Richard Hare
krytyka ze strony
Hare objected to emotivist theories like Ayer’s that they cannot tell moral reasoning from persuasion; moral judgements are universalisable prescriptions (The Language of Morals, 1952). R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals (1952), ch. 1; Freedom and Reason (1963); A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936), ch. VI
Źródło: szkic AI
Richard Hare › 1919–2002
Dzieła
Wypowiedzi metafizyczne i etyczne są bezsensowne – emotywizm.
Stanowisko
Ayer brought the doctrines of the Vienna Circle to the English-speaking world in a clear, provocative form. A statement, he held, is meaningful only if it is either true by definition, as in logic and mathematics, or in principle verifiable by sense experience. By this test metaphysics and theology are neither true nor false but literally nonsense. Ethical judgments such as “stealing is wrong” describe no facts at all; they express feelings of approval or disapproval and seek to evoke them in others – the position known as emotivism. Ayer later softened many of these claims, but his little book became the classic manifesto of logical positivism and a provocation for generations of students.
Życie i kontekst
Ayer was born in London in 1910, studied at Oxford and in 1933 spent several months with the Vienna Circle. At twenty-five he published Language, Truth and Logic, which made him famous overnight. After serving in the Welsh Guards and in intelligence during the war, he taught at University College London and from 1959 at Oxford; he was knighted in 1970.
Dalsze główne dzieła
- The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940)
- The Problem of Knowledge (1956)
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