AYER, A. J.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Language, Truth and Logic. First edition, third impression, of the work which brought the ideas of the Vienna Circle to the English speaking world. This copy contains three autograph letters from Ayer (1910-1989) to Daniel J. O'Connor (1914-2012), a close friend and fellow academic, dated 1964, 1987, and 1988, and an extract from the 20 September 1948 edition of Time, reflecting on the alleged fascist implications of Ayer's philosophy. The correspondence between the two philosophers is friendly and familiar. The letters focus mainly on the exchange of material between the two academics. The second, dated 28 May 1987, reads "I am delighted that you have written a paper for my seventh volume. Please send me a copy as soon as it is typed, as Helen is very dilatory in that respect. Let me know when you expect to be in London."Ayer's work is "full of passionate iconoclasm, expressed in a fine cadenced prose. Its central thesis is the verification principle, which divided all statements into the verifiable or the unverifiable... Ayer's ideas scandalized established philosophy (notably H. W. B. Joseph, H. A. Prichard, and Harold Joachim), not least through their self-assurance, and they infiltrated pre-war Oxford mainly through a discussion group of younger dons who met in Isaiah Berlin's rooms in All Souls College" (ODNB).

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