Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T12:27:49.382Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

An Interview with A. J. Ayer1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Extract

Ted Honderich: Professor Ayer, you wrote Language, Truth and Logic when you were only twenty-four, in 1935, and achieved fame by way of it. Tell us a bit about the writing.

A. J. Ayer: After I'd taken my Schools at Oxford—I read Greats—my tutor Gilbert Ryle suggested that I go away for a couple of terms. I had already been appointed Lecturer at Christ Church, and I wanted to go to Cambridge to study under Wittgenstein, but Gilbert said no, don't do that. We've got a lot of people going to Cambridge and we've a vague idea of what Wittgenstein is up to, but I believe something very interesting is happening in Vienna, under Moritz Schlick. Why don't you go to Vienna?

I'd just got married for the first time, and I thought Vienna would be a nice place to go to for a honeymoon. At this point I didn't speak much German, but I thought I'd pick up some, which I did, and so I went and worked with the Vienna Circle. I couldn't really take much part in their debates, but I understood what was going on and came back very enthusiastic about what they were doing. They were extremely empiricist, very anti-metaphysical, anti-religious, and this suited my cast of mind very much. I immediately started lecturing at Oxford on—I think it was Russell, Wittgenstein and Quine. Russell was at that time almost a forbidden subject at Oxford, and Wittgenstein and Quine were people who'd not been heard of.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Tomlin, , 1936.Google Scholar

3 Russell, , 1928.Google Scholar

4 Moore, , 1903.Google Scholar

5 Lewis, , 1929.Google Scholar

6 Ogden, and Richards, , 1923.Google Scholar

7 Austin, , 1962.Google Scholar

8 Austin, , 1971.Google Scholar

9 Calderon, , 1876.Google Scholar

10 Quine, , 1953.Google Scholar

11 Lewis, , 1963.Google Scholar

12 Parfit, , 1984.Google Scholar