Logical Positivism & its Legacy - A. J. Ayer & Bryan Magee (1977)

แชร์
ฝัง
  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 เม.ย. 2022
  • In this program, A. J. Ayer discusses logical positivism with Bryan Magee. This is from a 1977 series on Modern Philosophy called Men of Ideas. You can find Ayer's famous book, "Language, Truth, & Logic", here: archive.org/details/in.ernet....
    #Philosophy #Ayer #Epistemology

ความคิดเห็น • 154

  • @enochlule2698
    @enochlule2698 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +5

    Mr. Magee! Its stunning and rare to see a man so comfortable with his subject matter. And his interview skills are extraordinary, he clearly knows what he would like discussed, allows the interviewee to say it and only interjects, in a way not bringing attention to himself, to add meat when what was served was too lean. Very enjoyable!

  • @cheogrady
    @cheogrady ปีที่แล้ว +14

    And any man who pulls out a cigarette on television and smokes it - then or now - is a BOSS!

    • @vhawk1951kl
      @vhawk1951kl 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

      I will not disagree with you about that, but the fact of the matter is that in his day and my day everybody smoked cigarettes and everyone was much more pleasant well mannered and. I would much rather be a smoker then some quivering bossy frightened little modernist terrified of what is the fate of every single man

    • @randomdude7384
      @randomdude7384 25 วันที่ผ่านมา

      Jim Simons would agree.

  • @ERACISMneworleans1
    @ERACISMneworleans1 ปีที่แล้ว +22

    He was brilliant and highly influential. I read Language, Truth, and Logic before I saw him give a talk in 1962 at UMASS.

    • @jamestiburon443
      @jamestiburon443 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      And? So? Ayers expressed the truth of humanity on this planet? If only GOD was soooooo rational, we could all welcome Climate Horror in peace.

    • @FlaviousMaximus
      @FlaviousMaximus 9 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@jamestiburon443 Bro, life is too short to worry about those kinda things, just cool your beans and admire the wonders of life

    • @sergiosatelite467
      @sergiosatelite467 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Was he smoking?

  • @haimbenavraham1502
    @haimbenavraham1502 ปีที่แล้ว +14

    I love how he's trying to get a puff, between logistics.. Very brilliant and a pleasure to see and listen to.

    • @richardatkinson4710
      @richardatkinson4710 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Reminds me of my tutorials with, e.g., Colin Strang in the late ‘60s: the obscurities of philosophy were well symbolized by the clouds of tobacco smoke and chalk dust. What times!

  • @Onosecond
    @Onosecond ปีที่แล้ว +5

    i love the nonchalance with which Freddie lights up... different era!

  • @philipdubuque9596
    @philipdubuque9596 ปีที่แล้ว +24

    Ayer comes off as having a balanced and refreshingly honest reappraisal of logical positivism and caps this with an interesting comment about its relation to Willian James' pragmatism. The fact that he went straight to Vienna (rather that referencing Wittgenstein and/or Russell directly or for that matter Frege) yields a valuable perspective. His comment regarding Ernst Mach's debt to David Hume is also a valuable connection worth further exploration. Kudos to Mr. Magee for being such an erudite interlocutor in this discussion.

    • @richardatkinson4710
      @richardatkinson4710 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Magee somehow keeps up with Ayer - academics these days are way below that standard.

    • @LudwigWittgenstein-qi2gn
      @LudwigWittgenstein-qi2gn 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@richardatkinson4710No they aren’t, a lot of people seem to think that because the academy is marginally less white, male, straight and conservative that it has somehow diminished in quality. Invariably these people are cishet white male conservatives and justify diversifying the academy by broadcasting their ideas

    • @donaldist7321
      @donaldist7321 15 วันที่ผ่านมา

      @@richardatkinson4710 I think it is much worse than that. In many areas "scholarship" has descended into completely unreflected positivism and a contempt for the philosophy of science in particular. I have credited to Machlup in a couple of papers. In psychology and economics you are looked at with open contempt if you either doubt that what you see is what there is or if you ask for a connection of a proxy in a model with reality. The result is that when models are clearly comically wrong in their predictions, reality is adapted. That happens with "climate change" and the "pandemic". Reality has become completely irrelevant in economics, psychology, etc. I wish I had seen this video before I embarked on my academic career: the explanation that Ayer gives (youthful exuberance) makes more sense than anything I have ever seen elsewhere for the rise of logical positivism/falsificationism.

  • @maxw89
    @maxw89 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +8

    Why are there no shows like this anymore? A televised long-form series on modern philosophy? Are you kidding me? Bring it back

    • @andyayala9119
      @andyayala9119 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Systematic dumbing down by all world governments and technology . Who has 1Billion plus views?

    • @Elvisism
      @Elvisism 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      It would even be great to see more radio broadcasts of this nature. Maybe what is prioritised for consumption has been degraded, maybe I am not looking hard enough.

    • @Kinsale1333
      @Kinsale1333 21 วันที่ผ่านมา

      Who needs philosophy, baby, when we've got social media😂

  • @BrightAgeBeyond
    @BrightAgeBeyond ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Super interview, thanks.

  • @fidel500
    @fidel500 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Thanks so much for all these uploads! I did my degree in Philosophy before heading to Japan. Our lecturer used to say AJ Ayer was like the biggest thing to a philosophical rock star when he was a lad. We read Language, Truth and Logic on campus, but this is the first time I’ve seen or heard him speak. Thanks again for the upload!

    • @hossamgebeily
      @hossamgebeily 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Was it a good book? Is it hard to understand? I gave zero background in philosophy.

    • @fidel500
      @fidel500 8 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      @@hossamgebeily Not sure about easy, I think my professor said it was written for ordinary people to understand, but I still found it a bit hard. But as far as philosophy books go, I remember it being short, at least!
      I think his point was that some things are just true, like maths or sentences like "a triangle has three sides"... but things like art, ethics or a belief in God cannot ever be true or false in the same way... and to Ayer, that makes all those kind of statements meaningless, which must have been a bit shocking for people at the time.
      I hope my comment didn't put you off the book!

  • @salvespampuarw8479
    @salvespampuarw8479 ปีที่แล้ว

    This discution was so amazing, both of them where amizing man

  • @sfopera
    @sfopera ปีที่แล้ว +12

    It's just wonderful to hear the brilliant Ayer speak at length this way for the general public! It inspires me to try to revisit his work with a fresh mind. An intelligence officer during WWII, Ayer has every form of courage and brilliance to bring to ideas. And compared to the dour Nazi Heidegger, he's a beacon of clarity.

    • @LudwigWittgenstein-qi2gn
      @LudwigWittgenstein-qi2gn 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I mean Heidegger was a Nazi, but dour? Also there is nothing of value in logical positivism

  • @danielkellyuk
    @danielkellyuk ปีที่แล้ว +41

    Does logical positivism have an explanation for why 1970s TV was so brown?

    • @GENRTS
      @GENRTS ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Forms were either brown, green, or orange in the 1970s.

    • @andreapandypeterpan4062
      @andreapandypeterpan4062 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      That is f*cking hilarious 😂

    • @wanderslostify
      @wanderslostify 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +8

      When one says "is brown", to what does one attach that quality?

    • @sergiosatelite467
      @sergiosatelite467 7 หลายเดือนก่อน +6

      Pseudo-question.

    • @PrimitiveBaroque
      @PrimitiveBaroque 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      The proposition “1970s TV is brown.” is a proposition having a logical syntax consisting of both a descriptive argument and a color-predicate, e.g. Cl-Pr(a_sub-d). Since we have analyzed the proposition to consist of descriptive constituents, contrasted against logical constituents like arithmetical entities or analytic definition, we can say that the proposition expresses a synthetic truth and is observationally meaningful.

  • @richardatkinson4710
    @richardatkinson4710 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Absolutely amazing. This tells me everything I could hope to know about logical positivism. Just before Wittgenstein wrote his “Whereof we cannot speak.. .” dictum, he wrote that we may only speak about scientific truths. That seems to be roughly where Ayer - sparkling, fully conversant with the field - ends up. Wonderful. Thank you.

    • @alwaysgreatusa223
      @alwaysgreatusa223 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      And when you speak about a scientific truth is what you are saying itself a scientific truth ?
      For example, when it is said, 'we may only speak about scientific truths', is that itself a scientific truth ?
      Are not scientific truths only those truths that have been derived by the methods of science ?
      What scientific methods were used to derive the statement, 'we may only speak about scientific truths' ?

    • @richardatkinson4710
      @richardatkinson4710 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@alwaysgreatusa223 I think Wittgenstein is saying that metaphysics must be grounded in physics. Speaking about the truth of a scientific statement is an epistemological rather than a metaphysical matter. I suppose you are really asking whether the philosophy of science is itself a part of science. Some philosophers - Quine, for example - certainly thought they formed a continuum. But logical positivists believe(d) that in addition to the all-important empirical (scientific) grounding of philosophical truth there is also a logical or analytical element.

    • @alwaysgreatusa223
      @alwaysgreatusa223 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@richardatkinson4710 Is not science the product of scientific methodology ? Is this not how science is distinguished from pseudo-science, by the methods employed . Astrology, for example, is not a real science. Why ? The methods of the astrologer are not scientific, therefore astrology is a pseudo-science. Unless you happen to be a believer in astrology, I think you want to say the astrologer doesn't really know the future in the way that he claims to know the future. His predictions seem to lack the accuracy and the consistency of those of the real scientist -- the astronomer, for example, in his predictions of solar eclipses. These are empistemological standards by which we are judging the presence of knowledge in the astronomer that appears to be lacking in the astrologer. Accuracy and consistency in predictions are those standards. Where did these standard come from ? Did they come from science ? Is it a scientific truth that a real knowledge of the future necessarily results in predictions that are both accurate and consistent ? Is this a scientific discovery ? Or, instead, is it something that science presupposes ? If the latter, then it would appear that science presupposes certain epistemological standards by which we are to judge the legitimacy of scientific predictions. But surely epistemology is a branch of philosophy -- not a branch of science. In fact, as we have seen, science necessarily presupposes certain empistemological truths -- that is to say, philosophical truths. Among these philosophical truths presupposed by science is that only accurate and consistent predictions are truly knowledge (epistemology) and, therefore, only such predictions qualify as being scientific (philosophy of science). Now, it certainly doesn't seem to me that philosophy is dependent upon science -- quite the reverse! As we have just seen, science presupposes certain philosophical answers -- answers that are not themselves derived by the methods of science, but that are instead used to judge the legitimacy of those methods and the results that come from those methods, including predictions. Philosophy judges science, science does not judge philosophy.

    • @alwaysgreatusa223
      @alwaysgreatusa223 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@richardatkinson4710 Now, when you say something is an epistemological matter rather than a metaphysical one, I would like to know your criterion (or criteria) for distinguishing between the two. Is the statement, 'I think, therefore I am' an epistemological statement, a metaphysical statement, a statement of logic... ? We tend to think of Descartes as being primarily an epistemologist -- primarily concerned with establishing the foundations of knowledge. But, the full title of his most famous work is 'Meditations on First Philosophy'. First Philosophy ? Wait, isn't that metaphysics ? Descartes doesn't consider himself to be an epistemologist, so much as he considers himself to be a metaphysician -- that is, a philosopher of the first order. That is to say, philosophical problems are ultimately metaphysical problems in the last analysis. In other words, there is no philosophical answer that is not itself either a metaphysical answer or that does not presuppose a metaphysical answer. For example, Descartes' epistemology is clearly grounded in certain metaphysical answers. Among these answers are the existence of thought, the existence of the self, and the existence of God... If you take away any of these metaphysical answers -- for example, if you take away the existence of thought in answer to the question, 'what exists?'' -- you completely destroy the foundation on which Cartesian epistemology stands. There cannot be any clear and distinct ideas unless there is first a thought to host them. Epistemology is not a separate study from metaphysics, it's metaphysics applied to the study of the nature of knowledge.

    • @alwaysgreatusa223
      @alwaysgreatusa223 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@richardatkinson4710 At the end of the day, what is the real complaint of the positivists and other analyticals against philosophy ? That it is not scientific ? No, of course it's not ! Why would it be ? Again, philosophy judges science, science doesn't judge philosophy.

  • @AI-Hallucination
    @AI-Hallucination 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    miss people like this.

  • @Xcalator35
    @Xcalator35 2 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    Ayer was on fire here!! Was he allways like that?

    • @samjackgreen
      @samjackgreen ปีที่แล้ว +6

      yes.

    • @vhawk1951kl
      @vhawk1951kl 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Nobody is "always" like anything
      He came from generation where death was commonplace and what you mostly get from him was that he could not give a flying fuck.
      Contemporary beings are much weaker and worry about what other people think of them will they give a shit which is what makes them slaves.
      There is only one free man and that is the man that does not give a flying fuck about anything

  • @Robinson8491
    @Robinson8491 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Happy I finished this video as I thought he was actually a verificationist which made me dismiss him. Now I'll be able to read more of his works

  • @ericb9804
    @ericb9804 2 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    Great to hear him connect logical positivism directly to pragmatism via William James. Neo-Pragmatism is what was built on the ground cleared by logical positivists. 25:55 - "The distinction about being about the world and being about language isn't all that sharp because the world is the world as we describe it...as it figures in our system of concepts" That could have been written by Rorty. "Meaning is Verification" became "Truth is Justification," pushing the iconoclasm to its "logical" conclusion.

    • @Philosophy_Overdose
      @Philosophy_Overdose  2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Yeah, although positivism's reverence for science was obviously one of Rorty's main complaints against it. And even Rorty himself, by the way, came to recognize the untenability of identifying truth with justification, at least when he was pressed on the matter or not being incautious.

    • @ericb9804
      @ericb9804 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Philosophy_Overdose From Rorty's response to Daniel Dennet in "Rorty and his Critics" where I'd say he was pretty well pressed.
      "I have no wish to cast doubt on the distinction between the frivolous and the serious. That is a serious and important distinction...Neither of these distinctions, however, has any connection with the difference of philosophical opinion between those who do and those who do not believe that truth consists in accurate representation of the intrinsic nature of reality. This latter difference can also be described as that between people who think that justification to all comers is the only goal of inquiry and those tho think that there is an additional goal, namely getting things right. People who hold the latter view typically hold the view which I call "scientistic." They believe that this goal is achieved by natural science but not by those who debate political or literary matters...But I do not think that this sociological difference reflects the difference between valuing a failing to value something called "Truth" or something else called "Reason." To believe that it does seems to be as chauvinistic as the view that moral probity depends upon belief in the existence of a divinity to whom we owe obedience....But as long as analytic philosophers cling to the chauvinist idea that they, together with their colleagues in the natural sciences, have a special relation to "Truth" (valuing it more, or having more faith in it) that their more "literary" colleagues lack, they will be tempted by the unconversabilty, and the arrogant frivolity, that they decry in others."
      Perhaps you don't like calling truth, justification, and that's fine, but the point is "truth" is just another word we use to describe ourselves, our state of being, our confidence in the appropriateness of our behavior, ideas, and goals. "Truth" is not something special that belongs to only a chosen few. I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to, but I'm pretty sure Rorty never lost this understanding.

    • @Philosophy_Overdose
      @Philosophy_Overdose  2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@ericb9804 Well, to be fair, he does seem to waffle a bit on this point at certain times, which can make things somewhat confusing. But even in that quote you provided, I don't think that he's identifying truth with justification. He seems to be suggesting that the goal of inquiry can only be justification. But that's perfectly consistent with what I said. Indeed, it can perhaps even be seen to support it. After all, if truth itself just were a kind of justification, then insofar as you take justification to be the goal of inquiry, you would then also have to take truth to be the goal of inquiry as well. But Rorty doesn't actually want to do this. Instead, he wants to put the focus on justification rather than on truth.
      Rorty was certainly concerned in the early days with trying to give an account of truth, especially in pragmatist terms. But he soon seemed to give up on this, instead taking the view that the notion of truth is indefinable. In this way, truth cannot be identified with justification, simply because it cannot be identified with anything at all. And it was this indefinability of truth which I mainly had in mind in my comment. I'm sure you're aware of his view on this. I mean, it is something he points out in numerous places, including in many of the Rorty videos on the channel (e.g. in the discussion with Conant and Putnam, as well as in his talk on Universality and Truth).
      In any case, I take this to be his considered position on the matter. And thus, even someone like Rorty recognizes that truth may outrun justification and that the former cannot be reduced to the latter. This is precisely what allows him to say things like that we can have all the justification in the world and still not have truth. Here's another such example where he is making a similar point and distinguishing truth and justification:
      "One difference between truth and justification is that between the unrecognizable and the recognizable...There are, to be sure, what Lacanians call impossible, indefinable, sublime objects of desire. But a desire for such an object cannot be made relevant to democratic politics. On my view, truth is just such an object. It is too sublime, so to speak, to be either recognized or aimed at. Justification is merely beautiful, but it is recognizable, and therefore capable of being systematically worked for." (from Universality and Truth)

    • @ericb9804
      @ericb9804 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@Philosophy_Overdose thank you for your careful reply. And I apologize for coming off defensive. We are in agreement.
      th-cam.com/video/CzynRPP9XkY/w-d-xo.html - "The word true is indefinable, but none the worse for that. We know how to use it, we don't need to know how to define it."
      Truth may not be justification, but only in the sense that love is not affection, or justice is not fairness. Sure, sometimes one word feels more appropriate than the other, but only in reference to its rhetorical context. Whatever difference there is between them is a matter of our own psychology. So it seems we can only use them both at our peril in the hope that we are understood.
      Insisting truth is verification is a pragmatist's truth, done for the purpose of highlighting their break from traditional epistemology.
      Insisting truth is not justification is a poet's truth, done for the purpose of reminding the pragmatist that they are people too.

    • @jamespower5165
      @jamespower5165 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@ericb9804 Surely that's absurd? Truth is what is actually true. Your best guess at the truth is your best guess. But you have to admit that the world really is one way or another. And the particular disposition is the truth. Your best effort at getting at some truths may fail or at a certain point, you can't be really sure you've got at the truth. But that's your problem, not the world's. That's why the whole pragmatist programme goes nowhere. It doesn't add anything to the proper logicist-empirical quest for understanding the world

  • @vhawk1951kl
    @vhawk1951kl ปีที่แล้ว

    There is a word, or combination of words for 'art' becoming its own subject matter, and cinque contra uno springs to mind.

  • @nay.m
    @nay.m 2 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    The man, the myth, the legend

    • @vhawk1951kl
      @vhawk1951kl ปีที่แล้ว

      Sounds pretty, *means* what?

    • @zachsmith5515
      @zachsmith5515 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@vhawk1951kl - if you have to ask you'll never get it

  • @Frip36
    @Frip36 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Magee: "It _must_ have had actually, some _real_ defects." This is the perfect phrasing to ask an author, artist, musician, or person about their life, after they've done a bit of boasting, to make them give an honest look at themselves / their work. Confronting the speaker with the yin & yang of it, so to speak. E.g. "Bruce, your savant-like, (some would call autistic...chuckle-chuckle) attention to detail during the making of your albums is indeed quite admirable in showing how an artist will suffer for his art. The lengths an artist will go to to drag his vision into reality. Your painstaking approach must have had actually, some real defects however. In other words, what was sacrificed to the meticulous? A sense of spontaneity perhaps?" Magee's turning the tables, is a common interview technique of course. But his choice of words and delivery were slick. 34:00

  • @adamsasso1
    @adamsasso1 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    “I took my schools…” I like that. Think I’ll start using it. 😃

  • @nothanks800
    @nothanks800 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    It seems to me that a possible metaphysics exists when interpreted under the framework of logical positivism. The claim that things are real if and only if we can verify them with our senses can be attacked. How can we be sure that our senses are the only senses developed in the universe? If other senses exist and they are able to verify other physical phenomena, those phenomena are metaphysical to us.

  • @longcastle4863
    @longcastle4863 7 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I really don’t know if it’s me, my aging auditory sensory perceptual system, my phone, the show or the production , but I can’t tolerate this audio-even though I really really want to.

  • @firstal3799
    @firstal3799 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Yes

  • @lifeitself9
    @lifeitself9 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    “Most of the defects is that you know it is false”- 34:19
    The man who lead the movement graduated but his intellectual descendants are still stuck in kindergartens.

    • @manihourfar2194
      @manihourfar2194 หลายเดือนก่อน

      What about it was ‘false’?

  • @arcanuslosanara2823
    @arcanuslosanara2823 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Back in the day when positivism meant smoking in favor of getting cancer.

  • @v3student
    @v3student ปีที่แล้ว

    ...😎...🎼viva freedom 🌅🏞️📚🏖️...😎

  • @dorothysatterfield3699
    @dorothysatterfield3699 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I think he was talking quite fast enough.

    • @aletheuo475
      @aletheuo475 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      It's funny. He was acting exactly how I imagined he would. Sharp, quick movements combined with speech of the same kind.

    • @richardatkinson4710
      @richardatkinson4710 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      True - he’s taking no prisoners!

  • @JoshuaCookLibertyIsRising
    @JoshuaCookLibertyIsRising 2 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I was 1 year old

  • @alwaysgreatusa223
    @alwaysgreatusa223 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

    What is science to philosophy, but a child ? A child incapable of dealing with the most important questionings of life -- the value and meaning of life, the good life, whether it was better to have lived or never to have been born, the value of an examined life in contrast to a life lived dogmatically in ignorance, whether God exists and whether one can only know of his divine existence by first having faith, the true value of faith, religion, art, music, entertainment, fun, happiness, love..., whether my fellow man is my immortal brother or my mortal enemy, whether everything we do is simply in vain -- including science itself -- and whether, even if all we do crumbles to the ground, as the Kansas song 'Dust in the Wind' so eloquently laments, it is our very refusal to see that is our true value and greatness.

  • @jaccrystal6993
    @jaccrystal6993 14 วันที่ผ่านมา

    Because there can't be the simultaneous sensations of the measurements of position and velocity then at the 'quantum level' reality is in a constant state of acausal uncertainty although the macro continuum is very much predictable, that is, certain. As for Special relativity where the sensation a there of geometric ' SpaceTime'. Marginalised Aristotelian logic opened the path to the empirically verified principle of contradiction. Mythologies of atheism.

  • @guldenaydin9918
    @guldenaydin9918 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    🌈💝💐

  • @BobQuigley
    @BobQuigley ปีที่แล้ว

    In light of the cornucopia of knowledge flowing ever faster, a universe 14 billion light years in every direction the iron age belief system of a diety above morphs into a star trek episode

    • @vhawk1951kl
      @vhawk1951kl ปีที่แล้ว

      Whose knowledge?
      Define knowledge

  • @fabiodeoliveiraribeiro1602
    @fabiodeoliveiraribeiro1602 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Due to the resurgence of religious fanaticism in the USA, Europe and Brazil, this old TV program becomes very current and extremely important. It is not possible to combat the politicization of a religion with metaphysics. This can only be done with logic, dialectics, science and a total change of the field in which politics and society are discussed by fanatical religious leaders.

  • @alwaysgreatusa223
    @alwaysgreatusa223 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

    When has philosophy not reflected on philosophy ? As far back as Pythagoras, philosophers have reflected on how they look at the world differently from most other people. Pythagoras is said to have compared the philosopher to the spectator at the Olympic Games. Whereas other men went to the Games to compete for medals, or to exchange merchandise, the spectator simply went to observe the Games themselves. According to Pythagoras, the philosopher is first and foremost an observer of life and the world, whereas most other men are either first and foremost competitors seeking glory and honor, or they are first and foremost consumers seeking comfort and pleasure. Meanwhile, Socrates' whole philosophy is a reflection on the practice of philosophy as the sole means by which the Good Life can be achieved. He insists on the practice of philosophy, not only for himself, but for every man that claims to care about his own spiritual well-being and who desires to live well. Thus, he goes so far as to declare that an unexamined life is not worth living. But throughout his life, Socrates is still trying to make it clear what exactly it means to love wisdom, and he basically concludes that it is to be like himself -- being aware of his own ignorance, while still always desiring to know the truth, and while still always seeking the truth. For Socrates, philosophy not only begins in wonder, it ends in wonder as well -- or, more accurately, philosophy never ends for a true lover of wisdom except in death. For, according to Socrates, it is only after death that the soul of the philosopher will come to know the whole truth. The practical result of all this for the still living philosopher is that he will live his life in continuous wonder at life and the world, always seeking to know and understand it better than he already does, always curious, always investigative, always desirous to learn new things, a perpetual student of his life and the universe in which he lives. Compare this way of going through life with most other people who hold their beliefs dogmatically, who insist that they are wise, intelligent, knowledgeable, and that everyone who disagrees with them must be a fool. The philosopher always keeps an open mind and thus is always open to life and the universe, whereas most other men are close-minded, stuck in their ways, intolerant, dogmatic, and never interested in anything that does not immediately confirm to their satisfaction what they have already determined to be true. To these men, life is no longer open with new possibilities, they believe they already know everything worth knowing, and for them life and the universe in which they live are already a closed book -- a book that they will never have to bother to open and read again.

  • @alwaysgreatusa223
    @alwaysgreatusa223 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

    So, if Mach were right; and science is just a description of sense experience, then it necessarily follows that any science of the senses is merely a description of the sense experience of the senses. Interesting.

    • @Sazi_de_Afrikan
      @Sazi_de_Afrikan 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Yea, which brings Us back to Kant and transcendental psychology. Luckily, the pragmatists and Marxists have pretty good views about the philosophy of science to get Us back on track.

  • @martinrea8548
    @martinrea8548 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Wonderful conversation, but my God, that decor is simply dreadful.

  • @annehebert510
    @annehebert510 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    People controlled their anxiety in those days through smoking, it allowed you to focus the mind while giving you something to do with your hands. Since smoking levels have dropped, anxiety levels have shot up in our society.

    • @mkspassov
      @mkspassov ปีที่แล้ว +11

      So has life expectancy.

    • @orionxtc1119
      @orionxtc1119 ปีที่แล้ว

      worry beads

    • @AlbinoMemberTen
      @AlbinoMemberTen ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Tad reductive don't you think? What about the influence of skyrocketing inequality and the existential threat of climate change?

  • @jamestiburon443
    @jamestiburon443 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +2

    No philosophy explains it all. Never will. We are too limited, as humans. With that said, As a 60 year old searcher, since 14, the best book I think represents the metaphysical portrait of Reality is free on TH-cam. It is "Journey of Souls", by Dr. Michael Newton. Good luck fellow seekers.

  • @kaihunlu2345
    @kaihunlu2345 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Even if Ayer's words couldn't be followed, you would still walk away and say, "What a cool guy."

  • @alwaysgreatusa223
    @alwaysgreatusa223 5 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Actually, modern philosophy begins with Descartes. Logical positivism is not actually a philosophy at all, but rather a rejection of philosophy -- an anti-philosophy, if you will. After all, once you reject metaphysics, you necessarily reject almost all the important concepts of pure philosophy along with it -- being, becoming, causality (notice how scientism is now attempting to rid science of this 'obsolete' notion), God, good & evil, virtue & vice, value, morality, natural rights, human nature, soul, spirit, immortality, rebirth, reincarnation, nirvana... Also, note that many of these same concepts are vital to other branches of philosophy -- for example, the concept of 'natural rights' plays important part in political philosophy, as do 'good & evil' and 'human nature' in moral philosophy.

  • @321bytor
    @321bytor 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

    ...clever bastards...they'd get nowhere on TikTok

  • @holgerhn6244
    @holgerhn6244 ปีที่แล้ว

    Austin mochte er wohl nicht...

  • @filopon7116
    @filopon7116 2 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    positivism is the dark age of intellect

    • @TheSmith133
      @TheSmith133 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      This is too crude to have value.

    • @sfopera
      @sfopera ปีที่แล้ว +3

      I think the problem is, as Magee says, the evangelical and aggressive attitude that these philosophers had against anything that differed from their doctrines. Positivism is a great clarifier, but it mistook its own astringent nature for truth itself.

    • @vhawk1951kl
      @vhawk1951kl ปีที่แล้ว

      Does that not rather depend on which function is reacting?

    • @richardatkinson4710
      @richardatkinson4710 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@sfopera I dunno. I think the problem with logical positivism is that it frowns on the attempt to draw conclusions from scientific observations. Weinberg (Dreams of a Final Theory) is a hard-core reductionist, but fiercely critical of logical positivism.

    • @zachsmith5515
      @zachsmith5515 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@vhawk1951kl - nope

  • @raginbakin1430
    @raginbakin1430 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    What kind of drugs was this guy on

    • @richardatkinson4710
      @richardatkinson4710 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Philosophy and brainpower.

    • @zachsmith5515
      @zachsmith5515 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@richardatkinson4710 - more like rambling and waffle

    • @manihourfar2194
      @manihourfar2194 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@zachsmith5515Ayer’s lectures and his writings are the opposite of waffle.

  • @vhawk1951kl
    @vhawk1951kl ปีที่แล้ว +3

    This was plainly made in pre-modernist days when smoking tobacco was not a sin.
    Now that modernism is the official religion, smoking is clearly sinful, but then modernist like all religions, is largely concerned withy sin, is normative and moralistic, which is the essence of religion.

    • @zachsmith5515
      @zachsmith5515 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      a very shallow, immature and narrow minded view of religion. religion is largely concerned with Truth, sanctity and eternal salvation.

    • @twentyeight602
      @twentyeight602 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Religion and sins aren't the center of the world

    • @Dbdbe1
      @Dbdbe1 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Smoking kills you and passive smoking is bad for others. Yes, some of the reactions to it are over the top, and pursued with missionary zeal. But let's not lose sight of that, shall we?
      As for this stuff about religion being concerned with 'eternal salvation': lovely story if you still need it. But it's false.

    • @vhawk1951kl
      @vhawk1951kl ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Dbdbe1 Not so.
      I am living proof that smoking does not , repeat *Not* kill you; it certainly did not kill me and I have been smoking tobacco(rough 20-30 cigarettes a day) for seventy years.
      A is a true cause of B *If* A *Invariably results in B and if B occurs without A and/or if A does not invariably cause B it is correct to say that A is not a cause of B.
      Smoking tobacco may or may not be one of the causes of death on occasion, but it is categorically *Untrue* to say that smoking tobacco kills you.
      If smoking tobacco or more accurately inhaling the smoke of the tobacco plant was invariably fatal("killed you"), *every single* person that ever did so would have died on the spot, and given that billions of people have smoked tobacco without dying on the spot, that alone and the fact that writer has smoked millions of cigarettes in his long life, means that self -evidently smoking tobacco does not *Necessarily* kill anyone, although stupid credulity and the asinine supposition that there is a democracy of truth certainly tend to kill those that suffer from those weaknesses, but sadly are not 100% effective. All my results or children also smoke tobacco and are living refutation of your untrue assertion that smoking kills the smoker-if not you, who have smoked how many cigarettes or pipes or whatever?
      From the very moment that you and I were born we embarked upon a process identical in every single particular to jumping from the top of a very tall building or other high place, which can have only one outcome and it is mind bogglingly silly to suggest that smoking a cigarette on the way down could make the slightest difference to what is an ineluctable outcome; .Res ipsa loquitur.
      Smoking tobacco does not not not necessarily kill anyone -or you. The active half of the causes of my arising, or my father smoked untipped cigarettes every day of his life until a Chinaman shot him dead from which I infer that all people that are shot through/in the heart with bullets die and that being shot in the heart with bullets kills you, or if not you, all that are the recipients of such bullets in the region of the heart or chestal area..
      You are far too credulous. Whoever told you that smoking *necessarily* kills you or anyone was what we lawyers call Lying* -as I have demonstrated above., but NB *All* men(human beings)-including you titch, *must*, repeat *Must* die and self-evidently it *must* be *of something*, and of what hardly matters or signifies given that death is the ineluctable outcome for all those who are born or jump, and if you suppose that you can avoid an high speed impact wit the adamant by not smoking, you are mistaken.
      It is a kindness and a mercy that we men(human beings) are allowed to and must, die, or be(for ourselves) destroyed forever, for the alternative does not bear contemplation.

    • @HkFinn83
      @HkFinn83 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Look, smoking is cool and everybody knows it, but I don’t think you know what modernism means.

  • @dr.majidborumand6117
    @dr.majidborumand6117 3 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    Two dead people talking philosophy! Sad bad true! 😔

  • @jamestiburon443
    @jamestiburon443 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    He had a near death experience late in life, and deleted all he believed, like all atheists, in the end.

    • @WilliamofOckham990
      @WilliamofOckham990 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

      That literally isn’t true and if religion requires trauma or senility it isn’t worth much.

    • @jamestiburon443
      @jamestiburon443 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      @@WilliamofOckham990 bet you are a Catholic. No problem WITH RATIONALLY Accepting Catholic Dogma.

    • @freddiepatterson1045
      @freddiepatterson1045 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

      That is quite literally not true. It made him question his sympathy to those beliefs, but put forth that he still held them very strongly.

    • @jamestiburon443
      @jamestiburon443 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      He looks and sounds like Jean Paul Sartre. They both chain smoke, speak their sophisticated language and thoughts, they are more educated than a Viking peasant in Norway in the 7th Century. But they probably have less real spirituality than that Viking.

    • @jamestiburon443
      @jamestiburon443 9 หลายเดือนก่อน

      True dat