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AJ AyerINTRODUCTION “AJ Ayer is an interesting member of a group known as the Vienna circle. The Vienna circle existed in the 1920’s and 1930’s meeting in, no surprise, Vienna. The group met to discuss prominent issues in philosophy and react toward traditional ways of thought that seemed to permeate society at the time. The group entailed such individuals as, Rudolf Carnap, Moritz Schlick, and Kurt Godel. AJ Ayer and many of the members of the Vienna group were greatly influence by Ludwig Van Wittgenstein, a prominent German philosopher that preceded the group, and established the school of philosophy known as “logical positivism.” AJ Ayer and fellow members of the Vienna circle were particularly interested in the success of science, and appreciated the empirical nature of science as compared to the generally non-empirical way of viewing philosophy. They generally subscribed to the idea that philosophers should not bother speculating or philosophizing about things that can only be proven by science or other empirical methods. To theorize about that which can only be understood by empirics would be meaningless and ultimately would not serve any significant purpose. Logical positivists, as this type of philosophy came to be called adopted relatively hard standards for what can be considered worthwhile ideas. These standards greatly influenced how Ayer and his fellow logical positivist viewed the role of philosophy and philosophers in society at large. The Vienna circle philosophers believed that any statement if a sentence can not be verified, or evaluated through either the empirics of science, or by pure logic, the statement is worthless and should be discarded. This view of philosophy warranted a dismissal of all value statements as well as any evaluation of the truth of validity of the existence of a higher power. While Ayer does not necessarily conclude that there is no higher power, he does recognize the impossibility of ever determining the truth of that statement and thus determined that it is a waste of time to attempt to evaluate it and come to any sort of conclusion either way. In order to fully understand the theories and philosophy of AJ Ayer and logical positivism, it is necessary to first explore the life of AJ Ayer and recognize the sort of experiences that helped to characterize his life as a whole. THE LIFE OF AJ AYER AJ Ayer, or Alfred Jules Ayer, was born on October 29th, 1910 in London, England. The work or AJ Ayer functioned in a manner that helped to popularize this method of thinking in many English speaking countries far more than his counterparts in the Vienna circle were able to accomplish. Ayer graduated from Eton College and from Christ Church in Oxford with his degrees. He received his Bachelors degree in 1932 and his Masters degree in 1936. Ayer was exposed to logical positivism through his interaction with the Vienna circle in 1932, the same year that he received his Bachelors degree from Eton College. This exposure to the theories of logical positivism, largely developed by himself and fellow members of the Vienna circle enabled him to effectively disseminate the ideas throughout Great Britain during his professional career both as a writer, philosopher and professor. He achieved this through his publication of two major works, “Language, Truth and Logic” published in 1936 and “The Problem of Knowledge” published in 1956. He also published “The Central Questions of Philosophy” in 1973 and “Part of My Life: Memoirs of a Philosopher” in 1977. AJ Ayer was a professor at the Universities of Oxford and London and ultimately was promoted to Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University in 1959. AJ Ayer passed away on June 27th 1989 after having contributed significantly to the advancement of the philosophy of logical positivism around the world and especially in Great Britain. AYER ON INCONSISTENCIES Unlike many philosophers, AJ Ayer is more than willing to admit when he believes his own philosophy is incorrect or otherwise inconsistent. In fact, after setting forth his theories in “Language, Truth and Logic,” AJ Ayer has since backed down to some degree on some of the propositions set forth in the explosive work that changed the way much of the Western world viewed the way philosophy functioned as well as its role in the whole of society. AJ Ayer spends much of his time criticizing metaphysics, and instead determining that linguistics is where true philosophy ought to take place. The evaluation of what words are meaning and how they can influence the world is where AJ Ayer believes the most productive philosophy can take place. Unfortunately many of his critics point out that his stance on linguistics raises it to nearly the level of metaphysics, the very thing that he is opposed to in much of his contemporary philosophers. Nevertheless, Ayer is willing to, in large part, recognize these problems and attempt to reconcile them when possible, and if it is not possible to reconcile the inconsistency, he tends to back off of the original claim that he made. AYER ON LOGICAL POSITIVISM AJ Ayer is one of the most prominent members of the school of thought known as logical positivism. The philosophy of logical positivism is primarily and emphasis on the ability to prove things as correct or incorrect. Logical positivists are a similar school of thought to positivists themselves, though modified to accept the conditions of philosophy and linguistics rather than science itself. Positivism is a school of thought accepted by most members of the physical science community. It hinges on a few basic presumptions that can be transitioned relatively clearly to the adaptation of logical positivism, but are necessary to fully understand how logical positivism function as a philosophical perspective. First, positivism presumes that the truth and facts are out there. That no matter what the case there is a way that the information can be obtained and it is just a matter of finding the right way to tabulate it. Second, is accepts the fact that only empirical methods of study are acceptable. Observation, experimentation are acceptable, but metaphysical interpretations are meaningless since they are not verifiable. Since for positivists knowledge is the ultimate goal, values cannot have the status of knowledge, only facts that are verifiable can. This has a few ramifications when applied to philosophy in the mind of Ayer. First, since is presumes that there is some semblance of truth that is available, Ayer proposes that linguistics is one of the pre-eminent ways of attempting to find that information. While positivism posits that only empirical methods of study are acceptable, logical positivism includes logical conclusions. In other words, a logical positivist would recognize that any statement that cannot be verified through science or through application of true logic is meaningless. In this manner, the beliefs of logical positivism are such that value judgments and determinations about metaphysics are meaningless and ultimately have no value or place in contemporary philosophy. Value determinations and their role in philosophy is one element of logical positivism that Ayer particular attaches himself to. Ayer, and his fellow logical positivists believe that to examine and value statements is ultimately irrelevant since they are “emotive” in nature and have no basis in fact. Without a basis in fact, there is no way that either science or logic could prove or disprove the validity of a value judgment. As such, it has no place in the evaluation of statements and can be judged, in the view of logical positivists as largely irrelevant. AJ Ayer also attacks in numerous situations, the role of metaphysics. During the period of time that Ayer lived, as well as during much of the history of philosophy, metaphysical questions played a prominent role. The function of a higher power, as well as his (or her) actual existence is a question that has been pondered for much of history. These questions continue to play a significant role in philosophy, and AJ Ayer takes it upon himself to criticize the very nature of these questions. While they don’t specifically fall under the category of value judgments, they are non-verifiable, and thus according to the logical positivist way of viewing the world should be dismissed. According to logical positivism since both value judgments and metaphysical questions cannot be determined to be true or false no matter how much effort, logic or resources are dedicated towards the understanding of the question, since they are not based in empirical fact, they cannot ever actually be resolved. In a stroke of practicality, logical positivists then conclude that philosophers ought to dedicate their time and effort to answering questions of linguistics that are more successful and more productive than questions of metaphysics and value. AYER ON VERIFIABILITY AJ Ayer believes that there is a distinct difference in verifiability for any number of statements. Most specifically he outlines the difference between “strong” and “weak” verifiability. Ayer explains, “A proposition is said to be verifiable, in the strong sense of the term, if, and only if, its truth could be conclusively established in experience. But it is verifiable, in the weak sense, if it is possible for experience to render it probable. In which sense are we using the term when we say that a putative proposition is genuine only if it is verifiable?” In other words, if something can be proven to be factually correct in every situation it can be considered to fall under “strong” verifiability. However, in this manner AJ Ayer differentiates from the rest of the Vienna circle. Most of the Vienna circle favor the strong verifiability as preferable, believing that it is more likely to be correct and thus has significantly more verifiability. However, Ayer believes that “weak” verifiability is more valuable. Primarily the basis for this claim is that according to Ayer no claim can ever be proven 100% factual based solely on experience, thus all claims would not be considered verifiable and must be considered meaningless. Rather than this way of looking at the world, Ayer prefers to accept that if there is a strong reason to believe that a statement is true, then it can be considered valuable even without a 100% guarantee of its validity. AYER ON FIRST PRINCIPLES Ayer extrapolates from his earlier understanding of verifiability and the manner in which it functions, that first principles are fundamentally flawed. Now hold on, because the philosophy and perspective that Ayer deduced with regard to first principles is usually quite difficult to grasp. He attempts to make the claim that first principles and the entire approach to philosophy based on them is flawed and should be altered. First the text: “...a priori truth is a tautology. And from a set of tautologies, taken by themselves, only further tautologies can be validly deduced. But it would be absurd to put forward a system of tautologies as constituting the whole truth about the universe. And thus we may conclude that it is not possible to deduce all our knowledge from 'first principle;' so that those who hold that it is the function of philosophy to carry out such a deduction are denying its claim to be a genuine branch of knowledge.” - Ayer (Language, Truth and Logic) Ayer is making the argument that attempting to use philosophy to tackle an explanation of the universe is, and will always be, fatally flawed. There is no way to explain all knowledge while using what he refers to as the “first principle.” Thus, Ayer concludes that the only true function of philosophy is to examine linguistics and the structure and function of sentences which create the world. It is only through an examination of these principles and fact that philosophy can serve an effective purpose and form any conclusions. AYER ON ETHICS While some philosophers like Kant believe that the categorical imperative is an appropriate way of dealing with ethical questions, Ayer takes a far more extreme view. The categorical imperative means that you should make a decision based on whether or not that would be a good decision if everyone made it. In fact, Ayer will go so far as to assert that ethics cannot exist, and that questions of what is or is not ethical behavior are entirely meaningless. For example, the statement “Murder is wrong,” would, for most people, constitute a judgment on the ethics of murder or taking the life of another. However, Ayer would argue that rather than making that claim, the statement only has one relevant part. All the statement argues is that “Murder is.” The second half of the proclamation is based on feelings rather than any physical or observable fact. For this reason, the second half of the proclamation is wrong. As a result, since the statement contains no actual knowledge or information it is tantamount to meaningless. For logical positivists, only statements containing knowledge or information are worth pursuing, and since any statement containing feelings, or emotions are devoid of knowledge, they too are meaningless. In all cases, Ayer rejects the attempts to set up what he refers to as a “realm of values” to establish certain things in society that are or are not valuable to society at large. Statements such as, “Murder is wrong” merely communicate personal disapproval and individual feelings about the act, but do not warrant any significant evaluation or understanding. That is because they are non-falsifiable in nature. The statement can be neither proven nor disproved through empirical understanding and situations or through pure logical extrapolation, thus is not relevant for examination. CRITICISMS OF AYER AND LOGICAL POSITIVISM There are a number of general criticisms of the philosophy of logical positivism and more specifically of AJ Ayer himself. These criticisms allow individuals to escape the problems that logical positivist level at metaphysical philosophers as well as other individuals who choose not to endorse the mindset proposed by the logical positivists. The first major criticism of logical positivism comes from the fact that there is virtually no “enforcement” of the standards of belief that it lays out. While the idea of verifiability both of the strong and weak variety is appealing to individuals who already accept the mindset of logical positivism, metaphysical philosophers can merely choose to ignore or otherwise refuse to acknowledge the problems or solutions set up by logical positivism. There are no external reasons that people should be held to making sure that all important statements are verifiable. If this approach is taken, philosophers of any school of thought outside logical positivism can easily escape the criticisms leveled at them. The idea that the metaphysical questions are meaningless because they are not verifiable only has relevance because they choose to accept it. Should the philosopher or reader decide that they are not appropriate ways of determining the importance of a statement, they lose their power. The second major criticism of logical positivism is that it endorses a relatively strange way of looking at philosophy. Whereas every form of philosophy prior to logical positivism accepted that theorizing on questions that cannot necessarily be proven is important, logical positivism rejects this mindset. The basis of much of philosophy is that the role of a philosopher is to ponder the questions that cannot be answer, not, as Ayer would often have us believe, to ponder the importance and role of language in society as a while. The third criticism of logical positivism is that it has far-reaching and often times undesirable ramifications on science and other aspects of society. If the basis for validity of statements is accepted, and everything worth philosophizing about must be falsifiable, it threatens the very basis for society. For instance, empirical science often times is based on all sorts of things that cannot always be considered falsifiable. Much of the hypothesis that describe the way the world functions work almost exclusively in a manner that cannot be based on experience or logic. As a result, if logical positivism is endorsed entirely, the criticism is that it would handicap science and cripple its ability to develop theories on anything but the most fundamental of questions. AYER ON LINGUISTICS As is evident by even the titles of the books written by AJ Ayer, the emphasis that Ayer would place in philosophy is on linguistics and language. AJ Ayer believes that the function of philosophers ought to study the clarity and function of language in an attempt to understand how society functions and gather more information. Ayer argues that analytic propositions, or tautologies can serve the function of helping to shed light on linguistic studies. By evaluating those things that are linguistically or logically consistent it can begin to help clarify the way in which linguistics functions in society and for philosophers. This exploration is one of the major elements that AJ Ayer believes ought to be emphasized on behalf of most modern philosophers, since value and metaphysics are not worthy of examination due to their failure of the test of falsifiability. He also argues that philosophy is a critical activity entirely. It ought to be focused on the criticism of language and linguistics primarily, and that these criticisms can help to formulate and understanding of society at large. While most philosophers tend to believe that philosophy is about determining the meaning of something, be it life, death or any other element in society, Ayer provides an alternative perspective. Rather than believing that philosophy is about meaning, he believes that philosophy is about definitions and understanding the language that characterizes meaning. AYER ON METAPHYSICS Ayer spends much of his time criticizing the manner in which metaphysical philosophers approach their role in society. He believes that in most cases the approach to the world that utilizes non-falsifiable information to be meaningless, and that approach is the crux of metaphysical philosophy. There are a number of problems that Ayer feels makes metaphysics a meaningless field of approach that only serves to de-legitimize philosophy in general. The first problem that Ayer finds with metaphysics is that it continues to refer to a transcendent reality that cannot be seen or experienced in any empirical manner. This becomes particularly important when criticisms of Ayer come into play. Many metaphysical philosophers cleverly turn their theories around and point out that anyone criticizing metaphysics is merely another metaphysicist with an alternative theory. However, Ayer deftly avoids this criticism by delineating precisely where he attacks metaphysics. His claim is that metaphysics improperly apply the rules governing the use of language. The violation of the principles of linguistics is, in Ayer’s mind, a far bigger offense that having a misdirected understanding of the world. Since metaphysics applies theory to situations that can never be tested or explored, it violates the very role of philosophy. The second major problem that Ayer finds with metaphysical philosophy is that it has a tendency to evaluate the existence of a supernatural being or existence. While this particular theory is never rejected out of hand by Ayer, he considers it to be impossible to falsify. Since it is impossible to ever determine if a God actually exists or not, it is meaningless to attempt to discover it, or to bother pondering the existence of such a being. AYER ON THE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY Since Ayer was a philosopher, it is not surprising that he spent much of his time attempting to determine what exactly the role of the philosopher was in society. What questions ought to be examined, and when, if ever a conclusion can be drawn from outside the empirical existence. The understanding of logical positivists, and specifically AJ Ayer’s re-interpretation of logical positivism, known as “logical empiricism” contributes to this understanding of how philosophers ought to approach their situation in the world of academia. Since Ayer rejects metaphysical philosophy, he clearly does not accept the idea that a philosopher should interpret the meaning of non-falsifiable information. Rather Ayer argues that the primary function of a philosopher is to discover the understanding of definitions and the role that linguistics plays in recognizing society. Since philosophy, in Ayer’s mind is a solely critical activity, its function is to examine and criticize the linguistics of society. The only situation that philosophers can accurately explore is that of linguistics. Situations that are non-falsifiable, or fall under the subject of metaphysics, are meaningless according to Ayer. At the same time anything that is necessarily correct in society is not worth examining because it has already been determined as being correct and thus warrants no new analysis. One of the primary ideas that Ayer puts forward is that the only way people gather information about the mind is through their understanding and examination of the body. Ayer explains that the sense-memory from which all understanding is based cannot be the same from one person to another. This concept, although it seems relatively complicated, is actually quite simple. So long as individuals are fundamentally different they can never have the exact same experience. Even if two people see the same situation and it involves the same people, the understanding that emerges from that experience will still remain different. The two people will never have exactly the same experience, thus any conclusions that emerge will always differ at some level. It is the role of linguistic philosophers to attempt to clarify and understand these modifications so that an understanding of the world at large is much more possible and can actually occur effectively. AYER IN LD DEBATE AJ Ayer performs a relatively interesting role in Lincoln-Douglass Debate. Since the primary ideal of Ayer is that value debate is meaningless, since there is no where to factually evaluate the truth of a particular value, it seems to provide an interesting avenue to kritik the entire message in debate. Since virtually every round will devolve into some element of value consideration, Ayer provides an effective means of changing the focus from values to linguistics, and the power and meaning of words. The philosophy of AJ Ayer can also be used effectively to call into question any information that falls outside of Ayers ascribed “strong” or “weak” verifiability. If a statement made by the opposing team is unable to be tested and explored in the manner that Ayer claims is most appropriate, then it can be relatively easily discredited. While it seems interesting that Ayer helps to contribute some effective kritik ground for either side of the resolution, his work also provides an appropriate alternative. Any criticism is more effective if it includes some way in which the audience or the other team would be able to avoid the criticism. In this manner, Ayers determination that there is always linguistic structure worthy of criticism and evaluation as well as debate makes it an effective alternative for the opposing team to explore. Ayer is also effective in deployment for topicality positions. Since Ayer has determined that philosophy at its root is not even about what something should or should not be, or questions of ethics and morality. Rather Ayer believes that the primary function of philosophy ought to be discussions about definitions. Thus providing an appropriate warrant for any discussion of the definitions within a round. While the opposing team is likely to want to dismiss these claims, having Ayer provide evidence to support the fact that linguistic debate is the most important form if not the only form is particularly beneficial. Finally, one of the functions of debate is to persuade the audience that your positions are correct. Since Ayers draws intensely from personal experience as it is based exclusively on that which is empirical, or derived from experience. As a result, the argumentation can often appeal directly to the personal nature of the type or style of argument in obtaining persuasive appeal among the audience. 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