A.J. Ayer - Couverture souple

Rogers, Ben

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0802138691 ISBN 13 : 9780802138699

Editeur : Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press, 2002

A propos du livre

Quatrième de couverture :

'Ben Rogers has pulled off a feat of biography that deserves to take its place alongside two other great biographies of philosophers of recent times: Michael Ignatieff's Isaiah Berlin and Ray Monk's Wittgenstein...highly focused and perceptive.' Alain de Botton, Mail on Sunday

'Ben Rogers to convery, with a fine mixture of symapthy and stringency, how extraordinarly lovable he was - vital, funny, charming, courageous.' Jane O'Grady, Independent

Freddie Ayer (1910-89) was one fo the most influential philosophers of his generation: his first book, Language, Truth, and Logic, written when he was only twenty-four, changed the direction of British philosophy, while his clarity of thought and rapid-fire delivery made him a familar presence on Britain's radio's and televisions. In this first fully authorised biography, Ben Rogers realates Ayers ideas to his remarkable life, strangely troubled beneath its glamorous surface.

'Rogers provides excellent and sympathetic summaries of all Ayer's main books and articles...Admirable.' Ray Monk, Sunday Times

'A.J. Ayer's truly fascinating life, which Ben Rogers in this biography fills in with all the colour and detail it deserves. I can't recommend the book too highly.' Peregrine Worsthorne, Independent on Sunday

'A rich and sensitive biography with an unusally good account of Ayer's philosophy worked in.' Derwent May, The Times

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Freddie Ayer (1910-89) was one of the most influential philosophers of his generation, while his television and radio appearances, especially in the original `Brains Trust', made him Britain's first 'media philosopher'. In this lively, penetrating study - the first, fully authorised, biography - Ben Rogers relates Ayer's ideas to his remarkable life, strangely troubled beneath its glamorous surface. The 'quintessentially British' thinker was the only child of a Swiss-French father and Dutch-Jewish mother; after a lonely childhood he found his true role at Oxford. A friend of Isaiah Berlin, and a follower first of Bertrand Russell, and then of Wittgenstein. Ayer won fame at twenty-four with his brilliantly iconoclastic LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND LOGIC - an essential text for students ever since. Ben Rogers shows Ayer at work, in London, Oxford and America, and also at play, as a passionate follower of cricket and football, a great dancer, a lover of witty conversation and beautiful women. Married four times, Ayer was a leading figure in London 'cafe society', yet he was also a controversial public figure and broadcaster, vehemently left-wing in the 1930s, and later President of the British Humanist Association and the Homosexual Law Reform Society. Colourful, inimate, zestful and often poignant, this is a powerful biography.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
• Date d'édition: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0802138691
• ISBN 13: 9780802138699
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 416