A. J. Ayer

Lore & Background

Ayer was born in St John's Wood, in north west London, to Jules Louis Cyprien Ayer and Reine (née Citroen), both parents from continental Europe. His mother was from the Dutch-Jewish family that founded the Citroën car company in France; his father was a Swiss Calvinist financier who worked for the Rothschild family. He was educated at Ascham St Vincent's School, Eton College, and Christ Church, Oxford. After graduating, he spent a year in Vienna, returning to publish Language, Truth and Logic in 1936. During the Second World War, he served as an officer in the Welsh Guards, chiefly in intelligence (Special Operations Executive and MI6). He later taught at University College London and Oxford, was knighted in 1970, and died on 27 June 1989.

Reader's Guide

A. J. Ayer was a central figure in 20th-century philosophy, primarily known for introducing and defending logical positivism to the English-speaking world through his first book, *Language, Truth, and Logic*, published in 1936. This work, which dismissed metaphysics and endorsed a theory of ethics known as emotivism, sparked significant controversy and debate. His philosophical development was shaped by his education at Oxford and a formative period of study with Moritz Schlick and the Vienna Circle in the early 1930s. After lecturing at Christ Church, Oxford, and serving as an intelligence officer in the Special Operations Executive and MI6 during the Second World War, he held the Grote Professorship at University College London before returning to Oxford as Wykeham Professor of Logic. Beyond academia, Ayer was a prominent advocate for humanism, serving as the second president of the British Humanist Association. He was also president of the Homosexual Law Reform Society, a role he felt comfortable in as a self-described "notorious heterosexual." Ayer was an extrovert and social figure, deeply engaged with sport—having played rugby at Eton, being a noted cricketer, and a long-time season ticket holder for Tottenham Hotspur. He was unusually well-connected within high society and the establishment. Politically, he campaigned for anti-appeasement candidates in the 1938 Oxford by-election and later attended the founding meeting of the Congress for Cultural Freedom in West Berlin, where he argued for the continued validity of John Stuart Mill's ideas on liberty against what he saw as dogmatic anti-communism.

Did You Know?

• Ayer was the second president of the British Humanist Association from 1965 to 1970.
• He was president of the Homosexual Law Reform Society, remarking that 'as a notorious heterosexual I could never be accused of feathering my own nest.'
• In 1987, at a party, Ayer confronted Mike Tyson for forcing himself on Naomi Campbell, saying 'I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field.'
• Ayer had a near-death experience in 1988 after choking on smoked salmon, which he wrote about in an article titled 'What I saw when I was dead.'

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Sir Alfred Jules Ayer (29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989), more often referred to as A. J. Ayer or Freddie Ayer, was a British humanist philosopher, who was one of the leading proponents of logical positivism." — A. J. Ayer "There is philosophy, which is about conceptual analysis — about the meaning of what we say — and there is all of this … all of life." — A. J. Ayer "Emphasizing his views on philosophy as something abstract and separate from normal life to Isaiah Berlin, in the early 1930s, as quoted in A.J. Ayer: A Life (1999) by Ben Rogers, p. 2." — A. J. Ayer "The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940)." — A. J. Ayer