Anlage Publishing

A.J. Ayer

"For to say that "God exists" is to make a metaphysical utterance which cannot be either true or false."

A.J. Ayer was a British philosopher who first became famous in the 1940's. He had been extremely interested in a small group of philosophers known as the "Vienna Circle" who shared their ideas in the 1920's and 1930's and who helped to inspire Ayer's most famous philosophical piece entitled "Language, Truth and Logic".

Ayer was also a great admirer of the philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell who were responsible for the creation of a modern form of philosophy known as "analytic philosophy". Ayer’s contribution to the analytic tradition was monumental in that he developed what eventually became known as the essential doctrine of "logical positivism".

The doctrine of logical positivism generally stated the rules for what could be said in "truth" and what could be said as "nonsense". Essentially, everything "metaphysical" was relegated to the category of nonsense, at least when we purported to speak about it. Only the rules of science and logic could be used to make any "true" statements and metaphysical discussions did not fit into this framework. As for the other realms of knowledge which religion or spirituality might concern itself with, Ayer believed that these subjects should not be philosophized about as much as they should simply be "lived" according to each individual’s personal decision.

No more than the scientist is the philosopher specially privileged to lay down the rules of conduct, or to prescribe an ideal form of life... The question how man ought to live is one to which there is no authoritative answer. It has to be decided by each man for himself.

Ayer had been a lifelong atheist, largely due to his beliefs about the limits of language and logic. At the age of 78, however, he went into cardiac arrest and recovered from a near death experience. Regardless of his status as a strict logician, Ayer ironically produced some of the strangest metaphysical descriptions ever published and was hard pressed to reconcile these statements to his earlier philosophical claims.

The only memory that I have of an experience, closely encompassing my death, is very vivid. I was confronted by a red light, exceedingly bright, and also very painful even when I turned away from it. I was aware that this light was responsible for the government of the universe. Among its ministers were two creatures who had been put in charge of space. These ministers periodically inspected space; and had recently carried out such an inspection. They had, however, failed to do their work properly, with the result that space, like a badly fitting jigsaw puzzle, was slightly out of joint... It then occurred to me that whereas, until the present century, physicists accepted the Newtonian severance of space and time, it had become customary, since the vindication of Einstein's general theory of relativity, to treat space-time as a single whole. Accordingly, I thought that I could cure space by operating on time...

Although Ayer qualified many of his statements later on saying such things as "This experience could well have been delusive.", he also went on to say that "My recent experiences have slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death, which is due fairly soon, will be the end of me." Many who admired Ayer for his strict adherence to reason and logic came to argue over his later statements. These, as well as the convincing claims set forth in "Language, Truth and Logic" are still the ongoing focus of many philosophical debates today.