The Historical and Philosophical Significance of Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic (History of Analytic Philosophy)

This edited collection provides the first comprehensive volume on A. J. Ayer's 1936 masterpiece, Language, Truth and Logic . With eleven original chapters the volume reconsiders the historical and philosophical significance of Ayer's work, examining its place in the history of analytic philosophy and its subsequent legacy. Making use of pioneering research in logical empiricism, the contributors explore a wide variety of topics, from ethics, values and religion, to truth, epistemology and philosophy of language. Among the questions discussed are: How did Ayer preserve or distort the views and conceptions of logical empiricists? How are Ayer's arguments different from the ones he aimed at reconstructing? And which aspects of the book were responsible for its immense impact? The volume expertly places Language, Truth and Logic in the intellectual and socio-cultural history of twentieth-century philosophical thought, providing both introductory and contextual chapters, as well as specific explorations of a variety of topics covering the main themes of the book. Providing important insights of both historical and contemporary significance, this collection is an essential resource for scholars interested in the legacy of the Vienna Circle and its effect on ethics and philosophy of mind. Series Editor’s Foreword 7 Contents 10 Notes on Contributors 12 1: Introduction: From Spying to Canonizing—Ayer and His Language, Truth and Logic 15 1.1 Introduction 15 1.2 The Way to Language, Truth and Logic 17 1.2.1 A Few Months in Vienna 17 1.2.2 The Genesis of LTL 21 1.3 The Book of a Young Philosopher 25 1.3.1 The Content of LTL and Its Main Theses 25 1.3.2 The Controversy Surrounding the Significance and Influence of LTL 37 1.3.3 LTL and Its Representation of the Vienna Circle 42 References 47 Part I: The Book and Its Context 52 2: Language, Truth and Logic and the Anglophone Reception of the Vienna Circle 53 2.1 Introduction 53 2.2 An Anglocentric Provenance 55 2.3 Omissions Made by Ayer’s History of Logical Empiricism 58 2.3.1 Empiricism Versus Rationalism 58 2.3.2 The Long Nineteenth Century 61 2.3.3 The Neurath-Haller Thesis 62 2.3.4 Other Sources Ayer Does Not Mention 64 2.4 The Diversity Within Logical Empiricism 66 2.5 The Radicalized “Elimination” of Metaphysics? 67 2.6 Ayer’s Divergences from Carnap 71 2.7 The Aftermath 75 References 76 3: ‘Viennese Bombshells’: Reactions to Language, Truth and Logic from Ayer’s Philosophical Contemporaries 81 3.1 Introduction 81 3.2 J.L. Austin and Ordinary Language Philosophy 84 3.3 Arne Naess and Empirical Semantics 88 3.4 L. Susan Stebbing and Critical Thinking 93 3.5 Subsequent Developments 97 3.5.1 Philosophy 98 3.5.2 Linguistics 102 3.6 Conclusions 105 References 106 Part II: Philosophy of Language in LTL 110 4: Ayer on Analyticity 111 4.1 Introduction 111 4.2 Ayer’s Notion of Analyticity 112 4.3 Initial Observations 115 4.4 The Status of Definitions 117 4.5 Truth in Virtue of Meaning 120 4.6 A Famous Objection 124 4.7 Necessity and Linguistic Dispositions 126 4.8 Conclusion 130 References 130 5: Linguistic Analysis: Ayer and Early Ordinary Language Philosophy 132 5.1 Introduction 132 5.2 Origins of the Method of Linguistic Analysis 135 5.3 The Influence of the Tractatus 139 5.4 Ayer’s Logical Positivism 141 5.5 The Influence of Wittgenstein’s Later Views 144 5.6 Ordinary Language Philosophy 146 5.7 Ordinary Language Versus Ideal Language 153 References 157 Part III: Philosophy of Mind and Psychology 159 6: The Evolution of Ayer’s Views on the Mind-Body Relation 160 6.1 Introduction 160 6.2 The Phenomenalist Theory 163 6.2.1 The Relations Between Mental and Physical Events 163 6.2.2 Changes in Ayer’s Views on the Possibility of a Public Phenomenalistic Language 168 6.3 Interpreting the Psychophysical Relation in the Sophisticated Realist Framework 185 6.3.1 The Criticism of Physicalism 185 6.3.2 Ayer’s Positive Views 190 6.4 Summary and Conclusion 194 References 195 7: A Logical Positivist’s Progress: A Puzzle About Other Minds in Early Ayer Resolved 198 7.1 Introduction 198 7.2 The LTL Argument 201 7.3 The LTL Account According to Foundations 208 7.4 From the Original to the Official Version: Three Interpretations 211 7.4.1 No Puzzle 212 7.4.2 A Conflict of Verificationisms 214 7.4.3 A Change of Mind About Mind 217 7.5 Ayer on Logical Behaviorism 1936–1940 218 7.6 Ayer’s Verificationism 1936–1940 222 7.7 Further Developments 226 7.8 Stocktaking 1: The Puzzle Confirmed 229 7.9 Stocktaking 2: The Puzzle Contextualized 234 7.10 Stocktaking 3: The Puzzle Explained 238 7.11 Conclusion 247 References 249 Part IV: Epistemology and Truth 255 8: Ayer’s Verificationism: Dead as a Dodo? 256 8.1 The Importance of Verificationism in Language, Truth and Logic 256 8.2 What Is Verificationism? 260 8.3 The Criterion of Verifiability (CV) 265 8.4 Criteria of Verifiability 266 8.5 Weak Versus Strong Verifiability 271 8.6 Weak Verifiability 272 8.7 The Principle of Verification 275 8.8 LTL in Hindsight 279 References 281 9: Definition Versus Criterion: Ayer on the Problem of Truth and Validation 284 9.1 Introduction 284 9.2 The Definition and the Criterion of Truth and How They Are Connected 286 9.3 Ayer on the Tasks of a Theory of Truth and His Deflationism About (the Nature of) Truth 292 9.4 Ayer on Validation and His Place in the Protocol-Sentence Debate 297 9.5 Conclusion: How Can Ayer Be a Deflationist About the Nature of Truth and a Correspondentist About the Criterion of Truth? 305 References 306 Part V: Ethics and Values 309 10: Ayer and Berkeley on the Meaning of Ethical and Religious Language 310 10.1 Introduction 310 10.2 Ayer’s Emotivism 312 10.3 Berkeley’s Emotivism? 321 10.4 A Berkeleyan Reinterpretation of Ayer 328 References 333 11: Ayer’s Book of Errors and the Crises of Contemporary Western Culture 335 11.1 Introduction 335 11.2 The Immediate Impact of LTL in Britain 338 11.3 The Rise of Positivism in the United States 346 11.4 The Crises of Contemporary Western Culture 349 11.5 How Did We Get Here? Proximal and Distal Causes of the Crisis 353 11.6 The Significance of Language, Truth and Logic 358 References 364 Index 367