Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer ( AIR; 29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989) was an English philosopher who became professionally established through his exposition of major theses of logical positivism in Language, Truth, and Logic (1936). The work's dismissal of metaphysics, and endorsement of emotivism was the cause of much controversy and debate.
Following his education at the University of Oxford, and a period of study and discussion with Moritz Schlick and the Vienna Circle over the winter of 1932 –1933, from 1933 to 1940 he lectured on philosophy Christ Church, Oxford (his alma mater). After serving as a Special Operations Executive and MI6 agent during the Second World War, Ayer soon after became Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London from 1946 until 1959. He returned to Oxford to become Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, a chair he held until his retirement in 1977/1978. He was knighted in 1970.
Ayer was known for his advocacy of humanism, and was the second president of the (then) British Humanist Association 1965-1970. He was also president of the Homosexual Law Reform Society for a time; remarking that "as a notorious heterosexual I could never be accused of feathering my own nest."
Ayer was born in St John's Wood, in north west London, to Jules Louis Cyprien Ayer and Reine (née Citroen), both parents from continental Europe. His mother was from the Dutch-Jewish family that founded the Citroën car company in France; his father was a Swiss Calvinist financier who worked for the Rothschild family, including for their bank and as secretary to Alfred Rothschild.
Ayer was educated at Ascham St Vincent's School, a former boarding preparatory school for boys in the seaside town of Eastbourne in Sussex, where he started boarding at the relatively early age of seven for reasons to do with the First World War, and at Eton College, where he was a King's Scholar. At Eton, Ayer first became known for his characteristic bravado and precocity. Though primarily interested in his intellectual pursuits, he was very keen on sports, particularly rugby, and reputedly played the Eton Wall Game very well. In the final examinations at Eton, Ayer came second in his year, and first in classics. In his final year, as a member of Eton's senior council, he unsuccessfully campaigned for the abolition of corporal punishment at the school. He won a classics scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford. He graduated with a BA with first-class honours.
After graduating from Oxford, Ayer spent a year in Vienna, returned to England and published his first book, Language, Truth and Logic, in 1936. This first exposition in English of logical positivism as newly developed by the Vienna Circle, made Ayer at age 26 the enfant terrible of British philosophy. As a newly famous intellectual, he played a prominent role in the Oxford by-election campaign of 1938. Ayer campaigned first for the Labour candidate Patrick Gordon Walker, and then for the joint Labour-Liberal "Independent Progressive" candidate Sandie Lindsay, who ran on an anti-appeasement platform against the Conservative candidate, Quintin Hogg, who ran as the appeasement candidate. The by-election, held on 27 October 1938, was quite close, with Hogg winning narrowly.
In the Second World War, Ayer served as an officer in the Welsh Guards, chiefly in intelligence (Special Operations Executive (SOE) and MI6). He was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Welsh Guards from the Officer Cadet Training Unit on 21 September 1940.
After the war, Ayer briefly returned to the University of Oxford where he became a fellow and Dean of Wadham College. He then taught philosophy at University College London from 1946 until 1959, during which time he started to appear on radio and television. He was an extrovert and social mixer who liked dancing and attending clubs in London and New York. He was also obsessed with sport: he had played rugby for Eton, and was a noted cricketer and a keen supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football team, where he was for many years a season ticket holder. For an academic, Ayer was an unusually well-connected figure in his time, with close links to 'high society' and the establishment. Presiding over Oxford high-tables, he is often described as charming, but could also be intimidating.
Ayer was married four times to three women. His first marriage was from 1932 to 1941, to (Grace Isabel) Renée, with whom he had a son – allegedly the son of Ayer's friend and colleague Stuart Hampshire – and a daughter. Renée subsequently married Hampshire. In 1960, Ayer married Alberta Constance (Dee) Wells, with whom he had one son. That marriage was dissolved in 1983, and the same year, Ayer married Vanessa Salmon, the former wife of politician Nigel Lawson. She died in 1985, and in 1989 Ayer remarried Wells, who survived him. He also had a daughter with Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham Westbrook.
In 1950, Ayer attended the founding meeting of the Congress for Cultural Freedom in West Berlin, though he later said he went only because of the offer of a "free trip". He gave a speech on why John Stuart Mill's conceptions of liberty and freedom were still valid in the 20th century. Together with the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, Ayer fought against Arthur Koestler and Franz Borkenau, arguing that they were far too dogmatic and extreme in their anti-communism, in fact proposing illiberal measures in the defence of liberty. Adding to the tension was the location of the congress in West Berlin, together with the fact that the Korean War began on 25 June 1950, the fourth day of the congress, giving a feeling that the world was on the brink of war.
From 1959 to his retirement in 1977/1978, Ayer held the Wykeham Chair, Professor of Logic at Oxford. He was knighted in 1970. After his retirement, Ayer taught or lectured several times in the United States, including as a visiting professor at Bard College in 1987. At a party that same year held by fashion designer Fernando Sanchez, Ayer confronted Mike Tyson, who was forcing himself upon the then little-known model Naomi Campbell. When Ayer demanded that Tyson stop, Tyson reportedly asked, "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world", to which Ayer replied, "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field. I suggest that we talk about this like rational men". Ayer and Tyson then began to talk, allowing Campbell to slip out. Gully Wells, Ayer's stepdaughter via Dee Wells, records the same event with some slight variation of detail.
Ayer was also involved in politics, including anti-Vietnam War activism, supporting the Labour Party (and later the Social Democratic Party), chairing the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination in Sport, and serving as president of the Homosexual Law Reform Society. In 1978 he was interviewed for Bryan Magee's Men of Ideas television show, where he spoke about logical positivism and its legacy, later in 1987 he appeared on Magee's The Great Philosophers in an episode centering on Frege, Russell and Modern Logic.
In 1988, a year before his death, Ayer wrote an article titled "What I saw when I was dead", describing an unusual near-death experience after his heart stopped for four minutes as he choked on smoked salmon. Of the experience, he first said that it "slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death ... will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be." A few weeks later, he revised this, saying, "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief".
He asked A. C. Ewing what he was most looking forward to in the afterlife, the immediate response being: "God will tell me whether there are synthetic a priori propositions." Ayer comments that "It says something [...] about the nature of the subject that this answer should be endearingly absurd."