Richard Boyd
Encyclopedia
Richard Newell Boyd is an American philosopher who has spent most of his career at Cornell University
, though he also taught briefly at Harvard University
, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the University of California, Berkeley
. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
He is well-known in philosophy of science
circles as a philosophical realist
and a scientific realist
. In moral philosophy circles he is a leading defender of moral realism
. His co-edited book The Philosophy of Science (ISBN 0-262-52156-3) is widely used in undergraduate and graduate philosophy courses. He has also made important contributions to the development of Cornell realism
, a distinctly naturalistic position in moral philosophy.
Boyd's doctoral thesis, directed by Hilary Putnam
, is called "A recursion-theoretic characterization of the ramified analytical hierarchy", and his degree was one of the first Ph.Ds awarded in philosophy by MIT.
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, though he also taught briefly at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
He is well-known in philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
circles as a philosophical realist
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
and a scientific realist
Scientific realism
Scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be...
. In moral philosophy circles he is a leading defender of moral realism
Moral realism
Moral realism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion....
. His co-edited book The Philosophy of Science (ISBN 0-262-52156-3) is widely used in undergraduate and graduate philosophy courses. He has also made important contributions to the development of Cornell realism
Cornell realism
Cornell realism is a view in meta-ethics, associated with the work of Richard Boyd, Nicholas Sturgeon, and David Brink, who took his Ph.D. at Cornell University but never taught there...
, a distinctly naturalistic position in moral philosophy.
Boyd's doctoral thesis, directed by Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Whitehall Putnam is an American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist, who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science...
, is called "A recursion-theoretic characterization of the ramified analytical hierarchy", and his degree was one of the first Ph.Ds awarded in philosophy by MIT.