Number of posts: 5647 Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands Registration date: 2007-07-21
Subject: Funny: A. J. Ayer about logical positivism Sun Jun 07, 2009 9:45 am
So A. J. Ayer who sort of brought logical positivism to the Anglosaxan world and was famous for promoting it, was asked in an interview late in his life what the major shortcomings of logical positivism were. he replied:
Quote:
"I suppose most of the defects were that nearly all of it was false."
Haha!
hat tip Michael Stettler in his "The Rhetoric of McCloskey's Rhetoric of Economics"
Number of posts: 753 Age: 59 Location: southeastern north america ;) Registration date: 2008-09-02
Subject: Re: Funny: A. J. Ayer about logical positivism Tue Jul 21, 2009 12:24 pm
Conrad wrote:
Quote:
"I suppose most of the defects were that nearly all of it was false."
Haha!
hat tip Michael Stettler in his "The Rhetoric of McCloskey's Rhetoric of Economics"
Conrad, am I correct in assuming the quote is supposed to be of Ayer? And if so, might you have the specific source or perhaps a link for the quote you would share? I did a search for the specific quote and LiMi is the only return I got. Did you get the quote from Settler's book? And if so, do you recall if he gave the specifics regarding it (i.e. where Ayer said it, to whom, is it on record via his own writing, etc)?
I have begun plowing into Ayer's book "Logic, Language, And Truth" and that's why I'm curious. Admittedly, I'm not yet even sure if that writing is encompassed within logical positivism.
Number of posts: 5647 Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands Registration date: 2007-07-21
Subject: Re: Funny: A. J. Ayer about logical positivism Tue Jul 21, 2009 2:29 pm
eye2i2 wrote:
Conrad wrote:
Quote:
"I suppose most of the defects were that nearly all of it was false."
Haha!
hat tip Michael Stettler in his "The Rhetoric of McCloskey's Rhetoric of Economics"
Conrad, am I correct in assuming the quote is supposed to be of Ayer? And if so, might you have the specific source or perhaps a link for the quote you would share? I did a search for the specific quote and LiMi is the only return I got. Did you get the quote from Settler's book? And if so, do you recall if he gave the specifics regarding it (i.e. where Ayer said it, to whom, is it on record via his own writing, etc)?
I have begun plowing into Ayer's book "Logic, Language, And Truth" and that's why I'm curious. Admittedly, I'm not yet even sure if that writing is encompassed within logical positivism.
it's in the article I mention (Stettler's). don't remember what specifics he gave
Number of posts: 753 Age: 59 Location: southeastern north america ;) Registration date: 2008-09-02
Subject: Re: Funny: A. J. Ayer about logical positivism Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:23 am
T.E.M. wrote:
Haha, that's rich. Rare to find someone willing to admit they were wrong so openly.
Tho perhaps not quite so 'openly', as it comes from a Preface rather than a general tele broadcast, along that same richness:
Quote:
Four years ago I had occasion to re-read my first book (the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus} and to explain its ideas to someone. It suddenly seemed to me that I should publish those old thoughts and the new ones together: that the latter could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking. For since beginning to occupy myself with philosophy again, sixteen years ago, I have been forced to recognize grave mistakes in what I wrote in that first book.
And along the line of another's post i.e. "worthwhile":
Quote:
I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own.
Seems I need that thought on a brain post-it note (or like a refrig magnet printing, but that sticks to the mental door).
And lastly, if memory serves me accurately, Ayer said he wrote Language Truth And Logic when he was 24. 24!?! I'm not sure at what age he was first able to laugh about it, as in the interview, but in the interview he was well past being such a young man.
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Funny: A. J. Ayer about logical positivism Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:56 am
Whutz yer problem, dude? I was BRILLIANT when I wuz 24, phucking BRILLIANT. It's been all downhill since then. I must say I'm a bunch wiser now (especially the ass part), but I do think youth has it's advantages. There's a great book (that I've not read and so this is taken from hearsay) about the problems of adolescence or something like that. It points out that we humanz are at our peak in our teens and it is only because of the current need of social structures to destroy youth (before it out-creates the existing power structure) that we don't know that. It sure seemed like a valid theory to me.
- NonE (whoz ass was used to be a lot more smarter than it is even now)
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Funny: A. J. Ayer about logical positivism Tue Jul 28, 2009 11:45 am
Cognitive ability declines with age. Your habits get more accustomed to your environment, and your brain becomes slower and forgets actual conceptual knowledge. This is why people who were stupid to begin with remain retarded late into their life, they have adapted to being idiots and really don't have any way out now.
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Subject: Re: Funny: A. J. Ayer about logical positivism Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:50 pm
vichy wrote:
This is why people who were stupid to begin with remain retarded late into their life, they have adapted to being idiots and really don't have any way out now.
- NonE
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: Funny: A. J. Ayer about logical positivism Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:41 pm
Also, Logical positivism is indeed almost entirely false. That was a good episode of Philosophy Talk or whatever it was called.
