Ayer said of logical positivism in 1978 - "Nearly all of it was false... Logical positivism died a long time ago. I don't think much of Language, Truth, and Logic is true. It was full of mistakes".
Or maybe his understanding of "logical positivism" was full of mistakes.......The "Vienna Circle" didn't all think the exact same. Besides, Neo logical positivism is a revamped version of L.P.
Ayer was a legend. Wikipedia: Ayer, then 77, confronted Mike Tyson who was forcing himself upon the (then) little-known Naomi Campbell. When Ayer demanded that Tyson stop, the boxer said: "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world," to which Ayer replied: "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field. I suggest that we talk about this like rational men". Ayer and Tyson then began to talk, while Naomi Campbell slipped out.
Frederick Copleston completely deconstructed Ayer's philosophical position -the verifiability criterion or principle- in a 1949 debate sponsored by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Anyhow, logical positivism is rather poor, reason why from a philosophical perspective it proved to be extremely unsatisfactory.
Had not head this deconstruction by Copleston, but did hear that part of the debate between Copleston and Russell on the Cosmological Contingency Argument for God when Russell which was delightful to listen to in how polite and erudite they were...but had that one embarrassing part where Russell seemed to use the precepts of Logical Positivism to deny that something could be necessary or contingent except in an analytic/epistemic modality. He did not seem to realize that this destroys the foundations for trusting Empirical science, since we always assume that the results are contingent on the particulars of an experiment...
What an astonishingly clear, vigorous and erudite speaker. This guy fizzes! I've been trying to get my hands on these videos for years. Great stuff! Don't suppose you have debate between Ayer, Don Cupitt and Sperber, chaired by Magee as part of the thinking aloud series? My copy was destroyed.
I am not arguing on behalf of theism or religion, but just to be clear Mr. Ayer had a near death experience before he died - he saw a light and wrote a letter about his experience to the BBC. It does make you think.
naturphilosphie1-carnap distinguished internal, substantive questions about reality from external, framework questions. the latter were the sorts of questions metaphysics was concerned with. carnap changed those questions from substantive questions, questions about reality, to basically pragmatic questions. questions about what sort of framework it would be best to adopt for a particular purpose. what carnap denied was that the questions about the "ultimate categories of being", or "constituents of reality" were substantive questions about what there really is, what really exists. the only questions were those of what system, what framework, it would be best to adopt to achieve a certain purpose. metaphysics was dead.
Thanks; I had forgotten that if I ever knew it, though I just thumbed through my well-underlined copy of LT&L and didn't find it. Unlike the verification principle itself, the fact that Ayer made such a statement is easily verifiable. With no desire to cavil (as Prof. Blanshard would say), do you happen to recall where it occurs? I share your misgivings about Ayer's amendment, which seems a bit ad hoc. Of course Wittgenstein would love it, amounting as it does to a stipulation about language.
We can't talk about God......the man who told us this then proceded to talk about how we can't talk about God for the rest of his career....therefore talking about God
Lucy Haines But, unfortunately, it needs to be talked about, for as long as there is a large proportion of humanity that think that our lives and our laws should be ordered so as to please some or other god.
Logical positivism makes a lot of sense to me. It is restricted to the obvious, visual world, excluding metaphysics. I got a lot fom Ayer's 'Language, Truth and Logic'.
+rotweissrot100 just seen this, and believe it or not I'm English, and all I made was an observation, as I would assume Ayer is likely to have a good grasp of how Kant's name would be pronounced, but the pronunciation did seem charmingly archaic, nothing to do with it not being PC, however that relates to this discussion
Studying "Language, Truth and Logic" at the age of 19 in the first year of my degree many years ago, I had in my mind a bizarre image of the author that resembled some sort of titanic mutant combination of Plato and Karl Marx. Had I known at the time that Ayer was 25 when he published it, I'm sure I'd have been far less intimidated by its content and far more inclined, in the spirit of gratitude, to buy the old man a pint.
If you take Carnap's Aufbau as the primary example of positivism then it seems like Ayer misunderstood what the positivists were trying to do. They were not "against metaphysics" or attempting to discredit that area of inquiry, they simply wanted to draw a distinction between scientific and metaphysical questions. Carnap opened the door to a much more radical metaphysics simply by giving it its own place. There is no textual evidence that carnap was "against metaphysics".
I do not know that language rules are not applicable. Not all statements tend to be that explict. Meaning depends on correct inference. The problem is the fact that things must be interpreted, whats being said must be stated in a correct form to ensure perspicuity. As for not caring about language rules or logic is just mental laziness. Logic is necessity to ensure the individual draws correct inferences, otherwise whats being said might not be understood.
"You can't really believe that analysing statements to determine..." did I say you could or couldn't, what are you addressing here? I'm not really understanding you point on Popper, as Popper is talking about meaningless statements he was talking about his science, and I don't think this is a nice view of science, better is Newton's, I think.
I am not very sympathetic to logical positivism or any of its heirs (e.g., behaviorism), but I so much enjoyed this video. Thanks for posting. I had no idea of the historical and political context. Humanizes the whole project, ironically.
Well I shouldn't pretend to know much about Ayer's but logical positivism just seems like a waste of good minds. But no, I don't think a good philosophy is shown to be wrong but as in any bad philosophy there emerges something to learn from it.
Smoking is not ignorance. Someone may smoke due to ignorance - i.e lack of knowledge about the damage it causes to one's health. It is more reasonable to assume that most people smoke because they simply want to in spite of its unhealthy nature.
Logical positivism was right and wrong. It was right in claiming that metaphysical utterances such as "God exists" are meaningless, but it was wrong in claiming they can be proved meaningless. All anybody can do is simply admit that they themselves can get no meaning out of them.
Any philosophy that has been widely disgarded has not been a work in futility. The mark of a good philosophy is that it has been shown to be wrong; bad philosophy- indeed, all too much philosophy- is immune to such analysis. If everyone had the same basic approach to expressing, defending and criticising their philosophy as the logical positivits did, many more views would have been similarly disgarded. It's impossible to imagine subject/object dualism, for instance, surviving such a process.
I disagree, any action which inflicts damage upon the self is by nature due to ignoranve in some extent, lacking the knowledge or resolve to deal with lives problems, social pressure, conformity, consumptionalism, whatever, it is due to ignorance, you want to solve your problems, don't know how and destructive spirals manifest, like smoking, boozing, agression etc.
I don't really know about this guy, only that his own weirdness is giving non-anglophone philosophies (which he's not associated with and which he thinks himself above) a bad rep... Go figure. In particular Austin liked to bark at him (as they do).
Rubbish. You must have read o heard another discussion. No matter how well Ayer contested Copleston's base for the sense, reality, truth and meaning of metaphysical propositions, the now discredited verifiability criterion of Ayer was pretty much refuted exceptionally by Copleston.
Ayer said of logical positivism in 1978 - "Nearly all of it was false... Logical positivism died a long time ago. I don't think much of Language, Truth, and Logic is true. It was full of mistakes".
I had no idea! Wow.
Or maybe his understanding of "logical positivism" was full of mistakes.......The "Vienna Circle" didn't all think the exact same. Besides, Neo logical positivism is a revamped version of L.P.
Ayer was a legend. Wikipedia:
Ayer, then 77, confronted Mike Tyson who was forcing himself upon the (then) little-known Naomi Campbell. When Ayer demanded that Tyson stop, the boxer said: "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world," to which Ayer replied: "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field. I suggest that we talk about this like rational men". Ayer and Tyson then began to talk, while Naomi Campbell slipped out.
Ayer is dope he got into a dispute with mike Tyson over Naomi Campbell that's pretty cool
Frederick Copleston completely deconstructed Ayer's philosophical position -the verifiability criterion or principle- in a 1949 debate sponsored by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Anyhow, logical positivism is rather poor, reason why from a philosophical perspective it proved to be extremely unsatisfactory.
Had not head this deconstruction by Copleston, but did hear that part of the debate between Copleston and Russell on the Cosmological Contingency Argument for God when Russell which was delightful to listen to in how polite and erudite they were...but had that one embarrassing part where Russell seemed to use the precepts of Logical Positivism to deny that something could be necessary or contingent except in an analytic/epistemic modality. He did not seem to realize that this destroys the foundations for trusting Empirical science, since we always assume that the results are contingent on the particulars of an experiment...
textbook url?
What an astonishingly clear, vigorous and erudite speaker. This guy fizzes! I've been trying to get my hands on these videos for years. Great stuff! Don't suppose you have debate between Ayer, Don Cupitt and Sperber, chaired by Magee as part of the thinking aloud series? My copy was destroyed.
didn`t A J Ayer play for Leeds Utd in the 70`s ? I remember some great games with him , Billy Bremner and Eddie Gray
I am not arguing on behalf of theism or religion, but just to be clear Mr. Ayer had a near death experience before he died - he saw a light and wrote a letter about his experience to the BBC. It does make you think.
Lovely to see all these videos. One of my professors was a pupil of Ayers.
i've been writing about Ayer in A-level essays for 2 years now - nice to finally put a face to a name!
naturphilosphie1-carnap distinguished internal, substantive questions about reality from external, framework questions. the latter were the sorts of questions metaphysics was concerned with. carnap changed those questions from substantive questions, questions about reality, to basically pragmatic questions. questions about what sort of framework it would be best to adopt for a particular purpose. what carnap denied was that the questions about the "ultimate categories of being", or "constituents of reality" were substantive questions about what there really is, what really exists. the only questions were those of what system, what framework, it would be best to adopt to achieve a certain purpose. metaphysics was dead.
Thanks; I had forgotten that if I ever knew it, though I just thumbed through my well-underlined copy of LT&L and didn't find it. Unlike the verification principle itself, the fact that Ayer made such a statement is easily verifiable. With no desire to cavil (as Prof. Blanshard would say), do you happen to recall where it occurs?
I share your misgivings about Ayer's amendment, which seems a bit ad hoc. Of course Wittgenstein would love it, amounting as it does to a stipulation about language.
Ayer's a much more interesting talker than I imagined he would be.
@crucifr1ed
What great age are you referring to?
I never knew this, but it certainly seems plausible. What a hero!
Wow. Smoking. I'm not surprised that ayer is smoking. Its that he's the first philosopher in this series to do so.
We can't talk about God......the man who told us this then proceded to talk about how we can't talk about God for the rest of his career....therefore talking about God
Lucy Haines But, unfortunately, it needs to be talked about, for as long as there is a large proportion of humanity that think that our lives and our laws should be ordered so as to please some or other god.
@Namely82 How? By giving you anxiety? It gives me anxiety too.
Is the intro music from mozart?
Anyone have a transcript of this interview?
De.wiki dates this interview to 1976, which I would corroborate, having been an undergraduate at that time.
@Nanobourn Agreed. Sadly, a lot of great minds (like Ayer) are now gone, though.
Logical positivism makes a lot of sense to me. It is restricted to the obvious, visual world, excluding metaphysics. I got a lot fom Ayer's 'Language, Truth and Logic'.
never heard 'Kant' pronounced 'can't' until I heard Ayer speak
+rotweissrot100 What's this ridiculous nonsense about?
+rotweissrot100 Why should that, out of anything, have to do with what's "PC"?
+rotweissrot100 just seen this, and believe it or not I'm English, and all I made was an observation, as I would assume Ayer is likely to have a good grasp of how Kant's name would be pronounced, but the pronunciation did seem charmingly archaic, nothing to do with it not being PC, however that relates to this discussion
Yes, in german, the name is pronounced like that, a little bit like Can't but a little bit shorter
True lol
Studying "Language, Truth and Logic" at the age of 19 in the first year of my degree many years ago, I had in my mind a bizarre image of the author that resembled some sort of titanic mutant combination of Plato and Karl Marx. Had I known at the time that Ayer was 25 when he published it, I'm sure I'd have been far less intimidated by its content and far more inclined, in the spirit of gratitude, to buy the old man a pint.
I'm reading Language, Truth, and Logic at the moment, and I must say Ayer is an amazing writer.
If you take Carnap's Aufbau as the primary example of positivism then it seems like Ayer misunderstood what the positivists were trying to do. They were not "against metaphysics" or attempting to discredit that area of inquiry, they simply wanted to draw a distinction between scientific and metaphysical questions. Carnap opened the door to a much more radical metaphysics simply by giving it its own place. There is no textual evidence that carnap was "against metaphysics".
@crucifr1ed
who cares if smoking is evil, it's illogical to harm and intentionally addict yourself to any substance
otherwise, good point
@GeorgesBarras
joy is subjective, the harmful effects of addiction to ones physical health aren't
I do not know that language rules are not applicable. Not all statements tend to be that explict. Meaning depends on correct inference. The problem is the fact that things must be interpreted, whats being said must be stated in a correct form to ensure perspicuity. As for not caring about language rules or logic is just mental laziness. Logic is necessity to ensure the individual draws correct inferences, otherwise whats being said might not be understood.
I love these old interviews where people smoke and make themselves comfortable. Those were the days...
Ayer speaks really fast.
It wont change the "NOW"; will it!
Outstanding series! You certainly won't find this kind of tv programming ever in the US which is a shameful pity.
"You can't really believe that analysing statements to determine..." did I say you could or couldn't, what are you addressing here?
I'm not really understanding you point on Popper, as Popper is talking about meaningless statements he was talking about his science, and I don't think this is a nice view of science, better is Newton's, I think.
what a great age! when smoking wasn't evil, when ignorance wasn't fashionable...
i believe that is known as aporia
@Nanobourn I love you.
I am not very sympathetic to logical positivism or any of its heirs (e.g., behaviorism), but I so much enjoyed this video. Thanks for posting. I had no idea of the historical and political context. Humanizes the whole project, ironically.
?
Well I shouldn't pretend to know much about Ayer's but logical positivism just seems like a waste of good minds. But no, I don't think a good philosophy is shown to be wrong but as in any bad philosophy there emerges something to learn from it.
This is great
@jacklamborghini im glad someone else noticed that. he's a smart guy, but wow
Brand Blanshard put paid to logical positivism simply by asking if the verification principle was itself verifiable -- which it isn't.
Smoking is not ignorance. Someone may smoke due to ignorance - i.e lack of knowledge about the damage it causes to one's health. It is more reasonable to assume that most people smoke because they simply want to in spite of its unhealthy nature.
this interviewer is great. . something you don't usually read on youtube comments
Logical positivism was right and wrong. It was right in claiming that metaphysical utterances such as "God exists" are meaningless, but it was wrong in claiming they can be proved meaningless. All anybody can do is simply admit that they themselves can get no meaning out of them.
Any philosophy that has been widely disgarded has not been a work in futility. The mark of a good philosophy is that it has been shown to be wrong; bad philosophy- indeed, all too much philosophy- is immune to such analysis.
If everyone had the same basic approach to expressing, defending and criticising their philosophy as the logical positivits did, many more views would have been similarly disgarded. It's impossible to imagine subject/object dualism, for instance, surviving such a process.
I hope he does not rubbish it in the progress of explaining it.
6:25 Intellectual Tihssew.
I disagree, any action which inflicts damage upon the self is by nature due to ignoranve in some extent, lacking the knowledge or resolve to deal with lives problems, social pressure, conformity, consumptionalism, whatever, it is due to ignorance, you want to solve your problems, don't know how and destructive spirals manifest, like smoking, boozing, agression etc.
@seestickglue232 well said
he seems like a nice man.
OH GOD HIS TROUSERS
Don't those two statements conflict with one another? lol
I don't really know about this guy, only that his own weirdness is giving non-anglophone philosophies (which he's not associated with and which he thinks himself above) a bad rep... Go figure. In particular Austin liked to bark at him (as they do).
I like how Ayer spells 'science'. sAAns
shaibear - I am (no life)
He hasn't got an accent! This is the Queen's English aka English as such!
Yeah, a work in futility.
@crucifr1ed I agree with you, but these people were never fashionable ! haha
Rubbish. You must have read o heard another discussion. No matter how well Ayer contested Copleston's base for the sense, reality, truth and meaning of metaphysical propositions, the now discredited verifiability criterion of Ayer was pretty much refuted exceptionally by Copleston.
Ha ha the irony, to smoke is ignorant, nowadays people know better, some don't... speaking of ignorance.
Positivism = Intellectually dead
Unfortunately, it's still popular. Especially among many contemporary Atheists today.
Absolute rubbish. Russell destroyed Copleston as everyone knows.
Philosophy is boring and so 2010
De.wiki dates this interview to 1976, which I would corroborate, having been an undergraduate at that time.