Quotes by A.J. Ayer

A.J. Ayer

A prevalent fallacy is the assumption that a proof of an afterlife would also be a proof of the existence of a deity. This is far from being the case. If, as I hold, there is no good reason to believe that a god either created or presides over this world, there is equally no good reason to believe that a god created or presides over the next world, on the unlikely supposition that such a thing exists.

Afterlife

Believe

World

But if science may be said to be blind without philosophy, it is true also that philosophy is virtually empty without science.

Blind

May

Philosophy

Even logical positivists are capable of love.

Capable

Logical

I do not believe in God. It seems to me that theists of all kinds have very largely failed to make their concept of a deity intelligible; and to the extent that they have made it intelligible, they have given us no reason to think that anything answers to it.

Atheist

Believe

Thinking

I take it, therefore, to be a fact, that one’s existence ends with death. I think it possible to show how this fact can be emotionally acceptable.

Atheism

Facts

Thinking

If ‘god’ is a metaphysical term, then it cannot be even probable that a god exists. For to say that ‘God exists’ is to make a metaphysical utterance which cannot be either true or false. And by the same criterion, no sentence which purports to describe the nature of a transcendent god can possess any literal significance.

Atheism

Religion

True Or False

If the assertion that there is a god is nonsensical, then the atheist’s assertion that there is no god is equally nonsensical, since it is only a significant proposition that can be significantly contradicted.

Atheism

Atheist

Nonsensical

In other words, the propositions of philosophy are not factual, but linguistic in character – that is, they do not describe the behaviour of physical, or even mental, objects; they express definitions, or the formal consequences of definitions. Accordingly we may say that philosophy is a department of logic. For we will see that the characteristic mark of a purely logical enquiry, is that it is concerned with the formal consequences of our definitions and not with questions of empirical fact.

Character

Enquiry

Philosophy

It is possible to be a meta-physician without believing in a transcendent reality; for we shall see that many metaphysical utterances are due to the commission of logical errors, rather than to a conscious desire on the part of their authors to go beyond the limits of experience.

Believe

Errors

Reality

It is time, therefore, to abandon the superstition that natural science cannot be regarded as logically respectable until philosophers have solved the problem of induction. The problem of induction is, roughly speaking, the problem of finding a way to prove that certain empirical generalizations which are derived from past experience will hold good also in the future.

Past

Superstitions

Way

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Afterlife

Atheism

Atheist

Believe

Blind

Capable

Character

Choices

Claims

Disputes

Divine

Enquiry

Errors

Ethics

Facts

Given

God

Ifs And

Ignorance

Jobs

Logical

May

Mind

Moral

Morality

Nonsensical

Past

People

Philosopher

Philosophical

Philosophy

Reality

Religion

Religious

Rivals

Should

Shows

Significant

Superstitions

Tests

Thinking

True Or False

Truth

Way

World

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Quotes by A.J. Ayer

A.J. Ayer

But if science may be said to be blind without philosophy, it is true also that philosophy is virtually empty without science.

Even logical positivists are capable of love.

I do not believe in God. It seems to me that theists of all kinds have very largely failed to make their concept of a deity intelligible; and to the extent that they have made it intelligible, they have given us no reason to think that anything answers to it.

I take it, therefore, to be a fact, that one’s existence ends with death. I think it possible to show how this fact can be emotionally acceptable.

If the assertion that there is a god is nonsensical, then the atheist’s assertion that there is no god is equally nonsensical, since it is only a significant proposition that can be significantly contradicted.

It is possible to be a meta-physician without believing in a transcendent reality; for we shall see that many metaphysical utterances are due to the commission of logical errors, rather than to a conscious desire on the part of their authors to go beyond the limits of experience.

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