Language Truth & Logic
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Fair. Jacket: damaged, chipped along spine and folds; moderate loss. Page Condition: Yellowed, tanning. Markings: Previous owner. Binding condition: faded and dulled spine. 18th Impression noted on jacket.
One of the most provocative and enduring works in twentieth-century analytic philosophy, Language Truth & Logic announced the arrival of a brilliant young Oxford mind determined to overturn centuries of metaphysical speculation in a single, devastating argument. A. J. Ayer presents the core principles of logical positivism to an English-speaking audience, arguing with forensic precision that any statement which cannot be verified through empirical observation or logical analysis is, quite simply, meaningless — a conclusion that dismantles vast swathes of traditional theology, ethics, and metaphysics in one stroke. Written with a clarity and confidence rare in academic philosophy, Ayer's style is limpid and direct, translating the ideas of the Vienna Circle into a prose that is as readable as it is radical. The book's central doctrine — the verification principle — sparked decades of fierce debate and remains a touchstone for discussions of meaning, knowledge, and the limits of language. For anyone who has ever asked what philosophy can legitimately claim to know, this work issues a challenge that has never quite been answered.
Author: A. J. Ayer
Format: Hardback
Published: 1960, Victor Gollancz
Genre: Philosophy
Condition remarks:
Condition: Fair. Jacket: damaged, chipped along spine and folds; moderate loss. Page Condition: Yellowed, tanning. Markings: Previous owner. Binding condition: faded and dulled spine. 18th Impression noted on jacket.
One of the most provocative and enduring works in twentieth-century analytic philosophy, Language Truth & Logic announced the arrival of a brilliant young Oxford mind determined to overturn centuries of metaphysical speculation in a single, devastating argument. A. J. Ayer presents the core principles of logical positivism to an English-speaking audience, arguing with forensic precision that any statement which cannot be verified through empirical observation or logical analysis is, quite simply, meaningless — a conclusion that dismantles vast swathes of traditional theology, ethics, and metaphysics in one stroke. Written with a clarity and confidence rare in academic philosophy, Ayer's style is limpid and direct, translating the ideas of the Vienna Circle into a prose that is as readable as it is radical. The book's central doctrine — the verification principle — sparked decades of fierce debate and remains a touchstone for discussions of meaning, knowledge, and the limits of language. For anyone who has ever asked what philosophy can legitimately claim to know, this work issues a challenge that has never quite been answered.