Abstract
In the first edition of Language, Truth and Logic, Ayer defines an analytic proposition as one whose ‘validity depends solely on the definitions of the symbols it contains’. In the introduction to the second edition of the book, he defines it as a proposition that is ‘true solely in virtue of the meaning of its constituent symbols’. In this chapter, I spell out how the two formulations are to be understood and how they relate to each other. I discuss a problem that arises in connection with the question whether definitions are analytic or synthetic before elaborating Ayer’s conception of propositions and his explanation of the necessity of analytic truths. Furthermore, I respond to the idea that propositions such as ‘Nothing can be red and blue all over at the same time’ are true independently of what words mean and, hence, cannot be true in virtue of meaning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
All page references to Language, Truth and Logic are to the second edition of 1946, Ayer 1936/1946.
- 2.
Ayer’s alternative conclusions all present the situation as being in some way exceptional. He does not consider what we would say if these exceptional cases became the norm, if people consistently arrived at the number ‘9’ when counting what they take to be five pairs of objects. One could argue, following Wittgenstein, that while such cases might (pace Ayer) cause us to abandon the proposition ‘5 × 2 = 10’ as useless, they would not thereby refute the proposition itself (see Wittgenstein 1978, 51 f., 204).
- 3.
Ayer’s point is not compromised by the fact that ‘my friend’ is a definite description, although this makes the proper formulation of the negation more complicated.
- 4.
As opposed to Frege in his Foundations of Arithmetic, Ayer holds that not only arithmetic but also geometrical truths are analytic. Cf. LTL, 82–84.
- 5.
Some interpreters (e.g. Swinburne 1975 and Piazza 2016) understand Ayer such that he means truth by ‘validity’. Accordingly, they conceive of Ayer’s definition of analyticity such that a proposition is analytic just in case it owes its truth solely to definitions of linguistic expressions. This formulation is similar to the formulation Ayer later uses in his introduction to the second edition of LTL. And suitably understood, it is consistent with the conception of analyticity that I present above. I will come back to this formulation in Sect. 4.5.
- 6.
The issue of how propositions relate to sentences and whether or not it makes sense to talk of symbols being contained in a proposition, will be taken up below, in Sect. 4.5.
- 7.
However, Ayer holds that conclusive verification is impossible in the case of synthetic propositions Cf. LTL, 37 f. and Chap. 5.
- 8.
On this point, see also Broad et al. (1936, 106). Compare especially Kant’s definition of aposteriority in the Critique of Pure Reason, which can be paraphrased in the following way: ‘An a posteriori judgement is a judgement whose justification has to appeal to facts that can only be known through experience’.
- 9.
See also LTL, 78: ‘[I]t is possible for symbols to be synonymous without having the same intensional meaning for anyone’.
- 10.
Ayer is wrong, however, in his assumption that Kant’s containment criterion is supposed to be understood psychologistically. Cf. Siebel (2014, esp. 198, 204, 207).
- 11.
For example, there are no circumstances under which I would regard the proposition that I exist as proven wrong. Nevertheless, this proposition seems to be synthetic. Ayer could perhaps solve this problem by pointing out that other people might regard the proposition that I exist as refuted under certain circumstances. In the context of this chapter, it is not possible to discuss this issue further.
- 12.
It might also be possible that Ayer actually meant that propositions that cannot in principle be refuted are true by definition and not that they are definitions. In this case, he would not be committed to the claim that definitions are analytic propositions.
- 13.
It is debatable whether or not this claim is straightforwardly contained in Ayer’s definition of analytic statements in which there is no mention of deduction (‘[A] proposition is analytic when its validity depends solely on the definitions of the symbols it contains’ (LTL, 78)). However, the way in which Ayer spells out the nature of analytic statements throughout LTL makes it quite clear that he would agree that their validity depends on them being deducible from definitions. The closest he comes to making this very claim explicit is on p. 82, where he writes that the validity of an analytic proposition ‘follow[s] simply from the definition of the terms contained in it’.
- 14.
Ayer repeats this point in his introduction to the second edition of LTL, 16–17.
- 15.
This might hold for propositions that are about what certain expressions mean, though. ‘“Bachelor” means unmarried man’, understood as a synthetic proposition, could be said to be true in virtue of the meaning of ‘bachelor’.
- 16.
See Sect. 4.4 above: We can in fact abandon analytic propositions, but we cannot declare them to be false.
- 17.
We can ignore the difference between universal and necessary truths here because according to Ayer we are only justified in the claim that a proposition is universally true by appeal to its being necessarily true.
- 18.
I would like to thank David Dolby, Ádám Tuboly and an anonymous referee for their very helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper and Kai Büttner for helpful discussion. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant 184194.
References
Ayer, Alfred J. 1936/1946. Language, Truth and Logic. 2nd ed. London: Victor Gollancz.
Boghossian, Paul A. 1996. Analyticity Reconsidered. Noûs 30 (3): 360–391.
Broad, C.D., A.J.D. Porteous, and Reginald Jackson. 1936. Symposium: Are There Synthetic A Priori Truths? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 15: 102–153.
Büttner, Kai Michael. ms. Truth in Virtue of Meaning Reconsidered.
Ewing, A.C. 1937. Meaninglessness. Mind 46 (183): 347–364.
Frege, Gottlob. 1884/1980. The Foundations of Arithmetic. 2nd Revised ed. London: Blackwell.
Grice, Paul, and Peter Strawson. 1956. In Defense of a Dogma. The Philosophical Review 65 (2): 141–158.
Juhl, Cory, and Eric Loomis. 2010. Analyticity. London: Routledge.
Kant, Immanuel. 1787/1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. P. Guyer and A.W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Piazza, Tommaso. 2016. Ayer’s Metaphysical Analyticity. Rivista di filosofia 107 (1): 49–70.
Siebel, Mark. 2014. Ayers Kritik an Kants Definition analytischer Urteile. Kant-Studien 105 (2): 196–220.
Swinburne, Richard G. 1975. Analyticity, Necessity and Apriority. Mind 84 (334): 225–243.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1978. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, ed. G.H. von Wright, R. Rhees, and G. E.M. Anscombe. Revised ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rathgeb, N. (2021). Ayer on Analyticity. In: Tuboly, A.T. (eds) The Historical and Philosophical Significance of Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic. History of Analytic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50884-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50884-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-50883-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-50884-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)