X-Message-Number: 21262 From: "michaelprice" <> References: <> Subject: Language, Truth and Logic Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 09:07:57 -0000 David Pizer, here are a couple of Amazon reviews of A.J. Ayer's "Language, Truth and Logic" (1936). It will help you on your philosophy course! I read it over 20 years ago and found it very conducive for clear thinking. We can haggle over some of Ayer's applications of his Logical Positivist position - are all questions about god are metaphysical? - but the method generally I have found very sound. BTW, it is a very slim, jargon free, accessible volume. ************ start reviews ********** Synopsis If you can't prove something, it is literally senseless - so argues Ayer in this irreverent and electrifying book. Statements are either true by definition (as in maths), or can be verified by direct experience. Ayer rejected metaphysical claims about god, the absolute, and objective values as completely nonsensical. Ayer was only 24 when he finished LANGUAGE, TRUTH & LOGIC, yet it shook the foundations of Anglo-American philosophy and made its author notorious. It became a classic text, cleared away the cobwebs in philosophical thinking, and has been enormously influential. Reviewer: Ben Colburn from Cambridge, United Kingdom 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. ********* end reviews *********** Dave says: > If, say, Mike Perry, (he wants to make copies of himself), had a > copy of himself made and someone killed the original Mike Perry, > the original Mike Perry is dead. Since my logic seems to prove a > copy is not the original, then I would assume Mike Perry is dead. But how do we know Mike Perry is dead? The copy claims he is Mike Perry. We have define Mike Perry more carefully. There is a Mike Perry before the copying event (archaic Mike Perry) and two Mike Perrys after the copying (Mike Perry1 and Mike Perry2). Assuming they have evolved new, post-copying memories then Mike Perry1 and Mike Perry2 claim their own identities, but they both also claim to be (archaic) Mike Perry. Since their claims are not refutable by any experiment (the "operational definition" bit) then we should accept that (archaic) Mike Perry has survived, even if one copy, or the original, is lost. Thomas Donaldson, once again, assures me my ideas are "simply wrong", without adequate explanation. Thanks Thomas, you're simply wrong! BTW my argument did not relate to knowledge of physical continuity, as you seem to think, but to the presumed *dependence upon* physical continuity of identity. James Swayze accuses me of preferring my own, arbitrary definition of identity. In fact I did not supply my own definition, I merely cast doubt on the validity of the notion being used to discriminate between copies and the original. Cheers, Michael C Price ---------------------------------------- http://mcp.longevity-report.com http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21262