• The most important part of the paper for our purposes is the first couple of pages. On the first Ayer describes Ramsey’s views on truth and, on the second, uses them to make a connection between the idea of a theory of truth and the range of questions about knowledge that the logical positivists focused on.

• In the remainder of the paper, Ayer weighs in on a controversy among the logical positivists whose context will be described by Hempel. The key figures in the dispute were Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath, who were key figures in the Vienna Circle. More or less on Neurath’s side was Rudolph Carnap.

Schlick had introduced his idea of “Konstatierungen” (the term is hard to translate and the idea a little mysterious, so it is usually left in German) as an alternative to the “protocol sentences” championed by Neurath and Carnap. A protocol sentence was supposed to be an objective public report of experience—Neurath’s example was “Otto’s protocol at 3:17 o’clock: [at 3:16 o’clock Otto said to himself: (at 3:15 o’clock there was a table in the room perceived by Otto)].” On the other hand, Schlick’s “Konstatierungen” were intended to be so closely associated with immediate experience that they were’t really open to public statement. Schlick describes a “Konstatierung” as the “occasion” for issuing protocol sentences or as a recognition that a hypothesis about experience has been born out. He suggested the general form “Here now so-and-so” (e.g., “Here now blue”).