A.J. Ayer Quotes

17 quotes in 333 categories

• There never comes a point where a theory can be said to be true. The most that one can claim for any theory is that…
• The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. The surest way to end them is to establish…
• The principles of logic and mathematics are true universally simply because we never allow them to be anything else. And the reason for this is…
• The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful.
• 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…
• No moral system can rest solely on authority.
• It seems that I have spent my entire life trying to make life more rational and that it was all wasted effort.
• The only possible basis for a sound morality is mutual tolerance and respect: tolerance of one another’s customs and opinions; respect for one another’s rights…
• 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…
• The ground for taking ignorance to be restrictive of freedom is that it causes people to make choices which they would not have made if…
• Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?
• Even logical positivists are capable of love.
• 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…
• 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.…
• In other words, the propositions of philosophy are not factual, but linguistic in character - that is, they do not describe the behaviour of physical,…
• While moral rules may be propounded by authority the fact that these were so propounded would not validate them.
• No morality can be founded on authority, even if the authority were divine.

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