Language, Truth and Logic.

First edition, first impression, of the work that brought the ideas of the Vienna Circle to the English-speaking world. Ayer's work is "full of passionate iconoclasm, expressed in a fine cadenced prose. Its central thesis is the verification principle, which divided all statements into the verifiable or the unverifiable. Ayer's ideas scandalized established philosophy (notably H. W. B. Joseph, H. A. Prichard, and Harold Joachim), not least through their self-assurance, and they infiltrated pre-war Oxford mainly through a discussion group of younger dons who met in Isaiah Berlin's rooms in All Souls College" (ODNB). Square octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Bookseller's ticket of Blackwells, Oxford, contemporary blue ink ownership signature, and near-contemporary pencilled price, to front pastedown. Light rubbing, faint toning to spine, minor browning to endpapers and contents: a very good copy.