Alfred Jules Ayer (October 29, 1910 _ June 27, 1989), better known as simply A. J. Ayer (and called Freddie by friends), was a philosopher who helped popularise logical positivism in English-speaking countries in his books Language, Truth and Logic (1936) and The Problem of Knowledge (1956). He attended Eton and served in the British military during World War II. In many ways he was the philosophical successor to Bertrand Russell, although he gained fame more for adapting ideas of others than for true originality. He is perhaps best known for his verification principle, an attempt at creating a process for determining whether a sentence has any logical meaning. At several periods he taught or lectured in the United States, including serving as a visiting professor at Bard College in the fall of 1987, when he taught classes on "Moore and Russell" and "Ryle and Austin." Shortly before his death in 1989 he received publicity after having an unusual "near-death" experience, which to some suggested that he had moved away from his lifelong and notorious religious skepticism. However, he may have been merely attempting to report his experiences in an honestly objective, empirical manner.
At a party Ayer, then 77, encountered Mike Tyson harassing Naomi Campbell and demanded Tyson stop. Tyson said "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world." 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 explains that the principle of verifiability may be used as a criterion to determine whether or not a statement is meaningful.
Ayer argues that philosophic propositions are analytic, and that they are concerned with 'relations of ideas.' The task of philosophy is to clarify the logical relationships of empirical propositions.
Ayer is careful to explain that the verification principle is a definition of meaning, and that it is not an empirical proposition.
Ayer's argument begins with the characterization of two different theories of behaviorism in terms of their interpretations of behavior in terms of physical language or as physical phenomena: the "philosophical or logical theory of Behaviourism" is
Ayer's case for logical behaviourism rests on the necessity, for psychology, of "ridding itself of metaphysical accretions" in order to deserve the title of science (p.
Ayer argues that while the usual answer to the problem of the existence of other minds than one's own is usually based on analogy, analogy can only render probable propositions that could be in principle established by direct observation, but not nonsensical (meaningless) conclusions: "The Case for Behaviourism", pp.
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