". . . I have an extreme dislike for
vague, confused, and oracular writing; and I have very little patience
with authors who express themselves in this style. I believe that what can
be said at all can be said simply and clearly in any civilized language or
in a suitable system of symbols, and that verbal obscurity is almost
always a sign of mental confusion." C. D. Broad, "Critical and Speculative
Philosophy," in Contemporary British Philosophy: Personal
Statements (First Series), ed. J. H. Muirhead (London: G. Allen and
Unwin, 1924).
"Broad is the clearest-headed of philosophers." Brand Blanshard
"Philosophical fashion has not been kind
to Broad, and indeed his historical importance is evidently less than that
of Russell, Moore or Wittgenstein. Even so, I think that his work is
under-rated. . . . Where he excelled was in drawing up a brief. The
subject is discussed from every angle, the various possibilities
judiciously set out, the precedents cited, the fallacious arguments
exposed: nothing is skimped: looking for reason, we are not fobbed off
with rhetoric: there is never a hint of "something far more deeply
interfused". This is perhaps his weakness, that he does not burrow under
the surface, but only few can do this with profit, and it is much to have
the surface properly scrubbed." (A. J. Ayer, Part of my life
(London, 1977), pp. 117-8)
". . . I have an extreme dislike for
vague, confused, and oracular writing; and I have very little patience
with authors who express themselves in this style. I believe that what can
be said at all can be said simply and clearly in any civilized language or
in a suitable system of symbols, and that verbal obscurity is almost
always a sign of mental confusion." C. D. Broad, "Critical and Speculative
Philosophy," in Contemporary British Philosophy: Personal
Statements (First Series), ed. J. H. Muirhead (London: G. Allen and
Unwin, 1924).