A.J. Ayer Professions : Philosopher Born : October 29, 1910 Died : June 27, 1989 Browse All Authors Top 34 quotes by A.J. Ayer If one takes full account of the persecution of heretics, the frequency and savagery of the religious wars which Christianity had endangered, the harm caused, especially to children, by the pernicious doctrine of original sin, a case could be made for saying that the world would have been better off without Christianity. A.J. Ayer religious war children To make our position clearer, we may formulate it in another way. Let us call a proposition which records an actual or possible observation an experiential proposition. Then we may say that it is the mark of a genuine factual proposition, not that it should be equivalent to an experiential proposition, or any finite number of experiential propositions, but simply that some experiential propositions can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other premises without being deducible from those other premises alone. A.J. Ayer finite-number may numbers It is possible to be a meta-physician without believing in a transcendent reality; for we shall see that many metaphysical utterances are due to the commission of logical errors, rather than to a conscious desire on the part of their authors to go beyond the limits of experience. A.J. Ayer errors believe reality The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. A.J. Ayer disputes philosopher philosophical The principles of logic and mathematics are true simply because we never allow them to be anything else. And the reason for this is that we cannot abandon them without contradicting ourselves, without sinning against the rules which govern the use of language, and so making our utterances self-stultifying. In other words, the truths of logic and mathematics are analytic propositions or tautologies. A.J. Ayer principles use self We shall maintain that no statement which refers to a 'reality'transcending the limits of all possible sense- experience can possibly have any literal significance. A.J. Ayer significance limits reality Bertrand Russell would not have wished to be called a saint of any description; but he was a great and good man. A.J. Ayer good-man saint men There is philosophy, which is about conceptual analysis - about the meaning of what we say - and there is all of this ... all of life. A.J. Ayer analysis philosophy I take it, therefore, to be a fact, that one's existence ends with death. I think it possible to show how this fact can be emotionally acceptable. A.J. Ayer atheism facts thinking I see philosophy as a fairly abstract activity, as concerned mainly with the analysis of criticism and concepts, and of course most usefully of scientific concepts. A.J. Ayer analysis criticism philosophy In other words, the propositions of philosophy are not factual, but linguistic in character - that is, they do not describe the behaviour of physical, or even mental, objects; they express definitions, or the formal consequences of definitions. Accordingly we may say that philosophy is a department of logic. For we will see that the characteristic mark of a purely logical enquiry, is that it is concerned with the formal consequences of our definitions and not with questions of empirical fact. A.J. Ayer enquiry character philosophy I suddenly stopped and looked out at the sea and thought, my God, how beautiful this is ... for 26 years I had never really looked at it before. A.J. Ayer sea beautiful years There never comes a point where a theory can be said to be true. The most that one can claim for any theory is that it has shared the successes of all its rivals and that it has passed at least one test which they have failed. A.J. Ayer rivals tests claims The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. The surest way to end them is to establish beyond question what should be the purpose and method of a philosophical enquiry. And this is by no means so difficult a task as the history of philosophy would lead one to suppose. For if there are any questions which science leaves it to philosophy to answer, a straightforward process of elimination must lead to their discovery. A.J. Ayer philosophical truth philosophy Similar Authors F. H. Bradley philosopher Irving Copi philosopher Ivan Ilyin philosopher Ivan Illich philosopher Bion of Borysthenes philosopher Bonaventure philosopher All Authors