Because of Sir Alfred Ayer’s pithy language and trenchant style, this thin volume overflows with provocative insights and observations on several important issues dear to philosophers of the analytic tradition. It contains nine essays on such diverse topics as reference and identity, the causal theory of perception, the prisoner’s paradox, self-evidence and certainty, and the Vienna Circle. Ayer, from his stance as the self-styled, “Last of the Logical Positivists,” takes issue principally with Davidson, Hare, Mackie, Quine, Wittgenstein, Ryle, and Kripke.