Language, Truth and Logic (Penguin Modern Classics)
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Provocative and magnificent,
This review is from: Language, Truth and Logic (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
Language, Truth and Logic was the book that got me into philosophy. It is a model of how we should write in the discipline - Ayer's prose is witty, fresh and crystal clear. Reading it is like being struck by a bolt from heaven - while Ayer wasn't expounding his own ideas, his is by far the best exposition of Logical Positivism and one of the best pieces of philosophical exposition ever written. Worth taking with a pinch of salt - Ayer was on the right lines, but in the final analysis this is too iconoclastic (as he himself eventually admitted). Still, if you want to read a book that will take you by the scruff of the neck, shake you vigorously and make you look at the world in a completely new way, then this is exactly what need.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Language is key,
By
This review is from: Language, Truth and Logic (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
I read Ayer's obituary in the Telegraph and he seemed like an interesting man, so I bought this book.
As a teenage layperson, I found it VERY heavy-going, I kept a dictionary nearby to refer to and my copy is littered with notes to myself on word meanings. It was worth the perseverance to discover so much. His debunking of inexact, ambiguous metaphysics really helped me to make the switch from being a wooley agnostic to a fully confirmed atheist. Say what you like about positive optimism, it's Ayer's use and insistance of the importance of accuracy of meaning and expression in communication that I responded to. This book modified my outlook on life and I have given away and bought the book 4 times now.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A cult classic of analytical philosophy,
By A Customer
This review is from: Language, Truth and Logic (Paperback)
This book, which landed like a bombshell in the philosophical world of the 1930s, remains a thought-provoking read. In it, Ayer posits his own brand of highly sceptical empiricism. In the first chapter he sweepingly characterizes most philosophical enquiry up to the time of writing as pointless, and many of its theories and preoccupations as meaningless. Whatever is not empirically verifiable cannot be commented on, and to do so, in Ayer's view, is to spout nonsense. While Ayer's youthful writing sometimes makes unwarranted leaps of reasoning that make him vulnerable to criticism (as his opponents certainly realized), its vigour is also refreshing among the dryness of most analytic philosophy. I recommend this unreservedly as a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in philosophy.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
