One of the major pieces of philosophical work of the twentieth century was that of Alfred Jules Ayer, entitled Language, Truth and Logic. Published in 1936, it resembles the formality of a manifesto belonging to the Vienna Circle, which was broken apart shortly before by the emerging Nazi party. The book is recognised as the first significant work to introduce the English-speaking world to logical positivism and, what the school called, the 'verification principle'.
The principle, to my mind, encapsulates the relentless, mechanical logic of the philosophy, stating that no sentence containing a 'formally true proposition' or an 'empirical hypothesis' is 'literally significant', thereby justifying its dismissal as to the use of tenuous metaphysics. Indeed, Ayer dedicates the entirety of his first chapter to the dissemination of metaphysics and its subsequently senseless association with the 'department of logic' that is philosophy. He analyses this ancient misinterpretation as a presupposition of linguistic statements as unequivocal facts. In other words, there has been a shift in the definition of key terms and their real, original meanings, resulting in a loss of understanding through effective mistranslations. It becomes clear to readers that the study of linguistics itself is vital to the school in its attempts to clarify what Ayer calls the 'function' of philosophy.
In his preface, the writer acknowledges that all philosophical propositions are necessary and carry a significance that eliminates any disregard for any credible school of thought. It seems Ayer is attempting heroically to unite the differences between philosophers over thousands of years, which have themselves caused uproar in what may be described as 'the war of philosophy'. From Plato and Aristotle, to Locke, Rousseau and to Nietzsche, their separate thoughts and ideas should be defined by a single cause, namely the need for their profession not to be deductive or speculative, but conversely critical.
According to the following chapter, which explores the issue in more detail, philosophy must also be distinguished from the empirical nature of science, nor does it concern an area of knowledge that lies 'beyond the scope' of empirics. All experience, from Ayer's point of view, is or can be brought under scientific law. As a result, philosophers merely aim to determine the validity of scientific procedures and discoveries, presenting us with the bare facts that may or may not determine our own opinions. Crucially, it should not seek to enquire whether an individual philosophical interpretation is a truth, but which forms of interpretation are most logical. For example, Ayer refers to the philosophy of Descartes, which was founded upon intuitive certainties, in order to negate self-contradictions, (exemplified by the cogito, 'I think, therefore I am'). However, logical positivism would argue, according to the verification principle, that even intuition is not a certainty. Kierkegaard also criticised Descartes, stating he was simply furthering the assumptions of the term, 'I', and its ability to think. Here, we see the outlook of a logical positivist, concerning oneself with the complexities and implications of linguistic statements. In addition, the book itself regards the argument of Hume, echoing that no one event can intrinsically point to the next. Thus, Ayer here sides with the Principle of Uniformity of Nature, belonging to the eighteenth century Scot.
Logical positivism then seems intent on collapsing the contradictions of previous philosophers, seemingly reigniting the purpose of philosophy altogether. Ayer's nonchalance towards the long-disputed 'problem of induction' is typical of this revolutionary thinking, stating that the problem has 'no solution' that satisfies all principles (both formal and empirical) and so it cannot, literally, be a 'genuine' problem.
It seems to me that Ayer believes the revelations of logical positivism make the school unique. But is that not what every philosophy believes? Additionally, the book would appear to imply that all philosophies convey some form of truth, simply due to their existence as 'philosophies'. This in turn suggests that one may conceivably choose to believe in one school over another, however, Ayer seems adamant, like previous philosophers, that logical positivism provides all answers (that are as close to factual truth as is possible) to the aforementioned 'war of philosophy'. Indeed, chapter 2 mentions that philosophy should not seek to 'reassure', but this seems exactly what logical positivism is trying to achieve.
I may be cynical and I am not saying that the school is alone in being hypocritical and contradictory. In fact, I still think all schools are to some degree. So, unfortunately, from my point of view, Ayer may have introduced several more interesting theories and takes on philosophical questions, but he has found no lasting resolution as to what makes one school essentially more 'true' than the next.
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Sup Stef,
ReplyDeleteIronically, Ayer, by not purporting to offer any robust notion of truth, shared your need to avoid hypocrisy at all costs. Philosophy of the twentieth century, like everything else in that period, suffered from what David Stove called the horror victorianorum, which is the modernist fear of being a dupe. Two things caused this -- WWI, which made everything noble look like a sham, and the revolutions in physics, making fashionable all sorts of pessimistic inductions.
Ayer, because born in 1910, wasn't shell-shocked by these developments like those born earlier; growing up with the Jon Stewart prophet-jester mentality, he just rolled with it. Here's an excerpt from Metaphysics and Common Sense:
We say that we see the same table, but how, if you can never gain access to my experiences, nor I to yours, can we ever know that it really is the same? Communication then becomes like a game of postal chess. Each of us plays on his own board, sending out signals to report the position of his pieces and moving them in accordance with the signals which he in turn receives. He does not know that the boards and pieces of the other players are in any way like his own; he does not know even that they have any boards and pieces; he does not, if it comes to that, know even that there are any other players. He does not know and he need not care. It is enough for him that the signals which he records, no matter where they come from or what they mean to the person, if any, who sent them, can be correlated with the disposition of the pieces on his board. So long as this is so, he can get on with his game; and so long as he can get on with his game, these philosophical questions about the source and character of the signals need not worry him. (p. 25)