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We shall maintain that no statement which refers to a ‘reality’transcending the limits of all possible sense- experience can possibly have any literal significance.

A.J. Ayer

The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful.
A.J. AYER

Dispute Philosopher Philosophical Traditional
It appears, then, that ethics, as a branch of knowledge, is nothing more than a department of psychologyand sociology.
A.J. AYER

Branch Ethics Knowledge Psychology Sociology
But if science may be said to be blind without philosophy, it is true also that philosophy is virtually empty without science.
A.J. AYER

Blind Empty May Philosophy Science Virtual
Even logical positivists are capable of love.
A.J. AYER

Capable Logical Positivists
There is philosophy, which is about conceptual analysis – about the meaning of what we say – and there is all of this … all of life.
A.J. AYER

Analysis Conceptual Life Philosophy
I saw a Divine Being. I’m afraid I’m going to have to revise all my various books and opinions.
A.J. AYER

Book Divine Opinion Saws
Bertrand Russell would not have wished to be called a saint of any description; but he was a great and good man.
A.J. AYER

Good Man Saint Wish
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.
A.J. AYER

Atheism Atheist Equally God Nonsensical
We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express.
A.J. AYER

Factual Given Person Proposition Sentence Significant Verify
Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?
A.J. AYER

Being Mind Should Show Someone Wrong
Theism is so confused and the sentences in which “God” appears so incoherent and so incapable of verifiability or falsifiability that to speak of belief or unbelief, faith or unfaith, is logically impossible.
A.J. AYER

Atheism Confused Impossible Logical
It seems that I have spent my entire life trying to make life more rational and that it was all wasted effort.
A.J. AYER

Effort Insightful Trying
I see philosophy as a fairly abstract activity, as concerned mainly with the analysis of criticism and concepts, and of course most usefully of scientific concepts.
A.J. AYER

Abstract Activity Analysis Course Criticism Philosophy
While moral rules may be propounded by authority the fact that these were so propounded would not validate them.
A.J. AYER

Authority Fact May Moral Validate
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.
A.J. AYER

Atheism Emotion Fact Possible Thinking
I suddenly stopped and looked out at the sea and thought, my God, how beautiful this is … for 26 years I had never really looked at it before.
A.J. AYER

Beautiful Sea Sudden Year

We shall maintain that no statement which refers to a ‘reality’transcending the limits of all possible sense- experience can possibly have any literal significance.

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We shall maintain that no statement which refers to a ‘reality’transcending the limits of all possible sense- experience can possibly have any literal significance.

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Popular Authors

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