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A review by jonathonjones
Language, Truth and Logic by A.J. Ayer
3.0
If you’re the sort of person who would dismiss the theory based solely on the fact that the verification principle itself would fail the verification principle, it’s worth reading at least the first chapter or two (and certainly the introduction). It’s interesting to see exactly how it’s supposed to work, and also to get the theory of what philosophy is supposed to be doing (namely, clarifying issues).
The rest is not super interesting unless you buy into the principle itself, although either way you can see what the results of applying it to traditional problems looks like. Personally, i would have preferred the author spend more time fleshing out ideas and less time arguing for them - his tendency to say things like “I don’t need to give any more examples” was frustrating.
Because at the end of the day I don’t actually think this is something to be argued, exactly - it feels a bit too fundamental for that. Instead what I would want is something like “here’s a way of looking at the world, and here’s why that works out better than other ways of looking at the world”.
The rest is not super interesting unless you buy into the principle itself, although either way you can see what the results of applying it to traditional problems looks like. Personally, i would have preferred the author spend more time fleshing out ideas and less time arguing for them - his tendency to say things like “I don’t need to give any more examples” was frustrating.
Because at the end of the day I don’t actually think this is something to be argued, exactly - it feels a bit too fundamental for that. Instead what I would want is something like “here’s a way of looking at the world, and here’s why that works out better than other ways of looking at the world”.