seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from Japan
seen from Côte d’Ivoire
seen from Türkiye
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from Finland
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
The philosopher AJ Ayer 🌹
My favourite fact about AJ Ayer is that he was a good dancer and taught himself how to tap dance! Once, he confessed that he would have preferred to be a tap dancer rather than a philosopher, but had given up on the idea when he realised he would never be as good as Fred Astaire!
Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?
- Sir AJ Ayer
When famed Oxford philosopher Sir Alfred Jules Ayer was 77 years old, he squared off to boxer Mike Tyson at a New York party thrown by a prestigious lingerie designer. Told that Tyson was assaulting supermodel Naomi Campbell in an adjacent room, the septuagenarian philosopher decided upon gallantry, barged in and told him to stop.
Tyson was astonished.
``Do you know who the fuck I am?'' he angrily asked Ayer. ``I am the heavyweight champion of the world.''
Ayer, not a man to be outfamed by anyone, stood his ground.
``And I am the Wykeham Professor of Logic,'' he countered. ``We are both pre-eminent in our field. I suggest we talk about this like rational men.''
While Ayer faced down the most feared man on earth, Naomi Campbell made good her escape.
Mike Tyson did not ask for a re-match.
Emotivism
Key Strengths
Only 2 types of statements exist: Synthetic & Analytic. Since moral statements cannot be defined (‘unanalysable’) they are valueless.
Hume – Ethical statements are based on values not facts.
Foucault – Morality is historically contingent.
Karol – Ethical demands and stances grow out of human encounters. It is through encountering good and bad that we uncover morality and the need to be moral. Ethical statements do not require scientific justification, but instead the human experience.
Mel Thompson might insist emotivism trivialises moral laws, but emotivists are not directing people in how to live their lives, only assessing if morality exists. Perhaps a dislike of murder is enough.
Accounts for a variety of beliefs based on individuality, but also culture environment and identity.
Key Weaknesses
Emotivism sets the bar too high by arguing that since I cannot prove something it becomes futile. (eg. I cannot prove paedophilia is wrong, though I can give reasons as to why it is wrong – detrimental psychological effects, violation of human rights etc.)
Emotivism means morality is relative. Therefore, racists are correct in saying that racism is good.
Mel Thompson: “you cannot reduce morality to a set of cheers and boos”. Ethics is trivialised; laws such as “do not murder” appear no-more important than claiming, “I do not like sweets”.
Devalues laws – if we are not basing our laws of off good and bad, then why have them? Why are they so crucial?
Meaning is not only relevant to what we can prove. Whilst 1+1=2 is meaningful and accurate, something such as life after death can still have meaning to theists, despite it being unverifiable.
Karl Poppers Problem of Induction: it is asking how to justify theories given they cannot be justified by induction. Popper argued that justification is not needed at all, and seeking justification "begs for an authoritarian answer".
Waismann criticised the vagueness of the verification principle.
Hilary Putnam criticized the positivism distinction between observational and theoretical terms
A. J. Ayer: on Logical Positivism and Its Legacy (1976)
“I think it does start only at the beginning of the century, this extremely conscious preoccupation with language. Wittgenstein and Russell were interested in the relation between language and the world.”
A. J. Ayer - What has Become of Philosophy? (1978)
my mind when I am reading J.L. Austin’s lectures and his counter-arguments to Ayer’s argument from illusion:
enemies to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, slight angst with fluff, academic rivals, happy ending, 40K words
How Not to Look for God: An “Unapologetic” Argument for God
How Not to Look for God: An “Unapologetic” Argument for God
In two previous articles attempting to make an “unapologetic” argument for God, I have just been ramping up to make the argument. I still haven’t gotten there yet, and I am still just getting started. That’s right. I am still working on getting to the starting line. Maybe I will still get there. I say, “unapologetic”, rather loosely, in case you are wondering. I am not being apologetic in the…
View On WordPress
Person: think outside of the box!
A.J. Ayer: *hissing furiously*
