Metaphysics and Common Sense

by Alfred Jules Ayer

These fifteen essays are captivating works by one of the most celebrated philosophers of the twentieth century. They were mainly written for audiences wider than the professional philosophers and scientists who first heard and read them. The essays are forays in conceptual exploration on a broad array of topics.

260 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

In 1910, Sir Alfred Jules Ayer was born in London into a wealthy family. His father was a Swiss Calvinist and his mother was of Dutch-Jewish ancestry. Ayer attended Eton College and studied philosophy and Greek at Oxford University. From 1946 to 1959, he taught philosophy at University College London. He then became Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford. Ayer was knighted in 1970. Included among his many works are The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (1940), The Problem of Knowledge (1956), The Origins of Pragmatism (1968), Metaphysics and Common Sense (1969), Bertrand Russell (1972) and Hume (1980), about philosopher David Hume. Later in life, Ayer frequently identified himself as an atheist and became active in humanist causes. He was the first vice president of the British Humanist Association and served as its president from 1965 to 1970. He was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association from 1947 until his death. He was also an honorary member of the Bertrand Russell. In 1988, Ayer had a near-death experience in the United States after choking on salmon and subsequently losing consciousness. He wrote of his experience in “That Undiscovered Country” (New Humanist, May 1989): “My recent experiences have slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death, which is due fairly soon, will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be. They have not weakened my conviction that there is no god. I trust that my remaining an atheist will allay the anxieties of my fellow supporters of the British Humanist Association, the Rationalist Press Association and the South Place Ethical Society.” He died shortly after at age 78 in London. D. 1989.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Ayer

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayer/

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http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/AyerbyT...

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Reviews

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book taught me that there has been no truly 'new' philosophical thought since the 19th century. As A.J. Ayer sees it, the works of Marx, Nietzsche, as well as all the existentialists, including both Heidegger and Sartre, has been a lesson in the extension of Hegel's indubitably 19th century conceptual outlook, succeeding to the 7th generations of thinkers and beyond. In wrestling with philosophical history over the course of their lives, their glorious achievements were really just the assumption of the masks required for the political position they advocated for. In particular, Ayer says, Sartre's dictum that one ought to "live authentically" is simply devoid of content in that it cannot be taken as instruction at all on a primary level, but rather is a philosophy of function disguised as a normative philosophy of rationality. Three stars.