A. J. Ayer (born 29 October, 1910; died 27 June, 1989), pictured above in a 1952 photograph (Corbis)
‘Like Hume, I divide all genuine propositions into two classes: those which, in his terminology, concern “relations of ideas”, and those which concern “matters of fact”. The former class comprises the a priori propositions of logic and pure mathematics, and these I allow to be necessary and certain only because they are analytic. That is, I maintain that the reason why these propositions cannot be confuted in experience is that they do not make any assertion about the empirical world, but simply record our determination to use symbols in a certain fashion.’
—from Language, Truth and Logic (1936)
‘It seems that I have spent my entire time trying to make life more rational and that it was all wasted effort.’
—quoted in the Observer, 1986
