I am a bit of a sucker for a Pelican and the subject matter of this one took me back to the great lectures I had in Durham with Richard Smith - but I never quite got my head around those lectures and it is safe to say I didn't get my head around this book, but the pleasure is in the trying.
And, I think, that is really Ayer's point, he can not give us a philosophical proof on the existence of the past, of feelings of others (or even the existence of any other conscious being other than oneself), but at some point we have to acknowledge that despite the philosophical uncertainty the only practical explanation for the world is that there was a past, the only practical explanation for what appear to the numerous other conscious human being you encounter in daily life is that they are in fact conscious, and so on. Any explanation I seek for the apparent existence of the Pelican Original in front of me other than the fact that there is a thinking being A. J. Ayer who wrote it is beset with greater difficulties than excepting A. J. Ayer exists, however it remains the best explanation and not the 'only' explaination.
But not finding certainty does not mean we should give up the search for truth, and the philosophical models that try and give certainty are clumsy and inelegant. It is better that we learn is how to hold the two in tension, to acknowledge the philosophical uncertainty while still continuing to life in the world.
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