PHIL 180 Lecture 12: Ayer on Meaning of Life
Document Summary
Ayer (1910 1989) was the grote professor of the philosophy of mind and logic at university. College london from 1946 until 1959, when he became wykeham professor of logic at the university of. He is one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth-century. Ayer is perhaps best known for advocating the verification principle, the idea that statements and questions are meaningful only if we can determine whether they are true by analytic or empirical methods. Thus events have or lack meaning to the extent they bring about, or do not bring about, the end that is desired. The above suggests that overall meaning would be found in the end to which all events are tending. Furthermore, the end would not have been one we had chosen; to us this end is arbitrary, that is, it is without reason or justification.
