Ayer

No doubt, Gottlob Frege and A. J. Ayer are considered to be among the most prominent contemporary philosophers. Insofar as one of them has revolutionized the linguistic domain while the other has influenced the domain of ethics in a diametrical fashion. Ayer’s theory of emotivism is regarded as one of the most controversial moral theories in the past century. We believe that Frege, as a linguistic philosopher, has influenced emotivism in the methodological, logical, semantic, and epistemological domains. The emphasis on two fundamental principles of “compositionality” and “contextuality”; “the existence of mathematical concepts independent from mind”, “empiricism and verificationism” are all variables upon which emotivism is clearly dependent. The latter claim can be substantiated via analysis of the works of Ayer and particularly his “Language, Truth, and Logic” as well as his assertion in the introduction to this book concerning his debt to Frege. Among the most significant results of this essay, one can refer to the demonstration of the point that what constitutes the identity of the theory of emotivism is influenced by the “general line of linguistic analysis” in the aforementioned four domains.

Background: No doubt, A. J. Ayer is one of the contemporary philosophers who has unorthodox ideas in the domain of religion and ethics. In the domain of epistemology, Ayer believed that failure of “analysis” or “empirical proof” will lead to the meaninglessness of the proposition. Thus conceived, theological propositions are nonsensical while moral propositions are mere expression of feelings and then both of them are considered to be meaningless. Conclusion: The author believes that a major part of the ideas of Ayer is derived from such analytic philosophers as Russell and Early Wittgenstein. The objective of the present essay is the demonstration of the latter claim through the study and explication of the religious and moral ideas of Ayer. This essay is written based on the method of documentation and analysis. Among the results of this essay, one can refer to the demonstration of the deep influence of Russell and Early Wittgenstein on the religious and moral ideas of A. J. Ayer.