Roderick_Firth

Roderick Firth

Roderick Firth

American philosopher

Roderick Firth (January 30, 1917 – December 22, 1987)[1] was an American philosopher. He was Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University from 1953 until his death.[1]

Education

Firth earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard in 1943. His thesis was entitled Sense-Data and the Principle of Reduction.

Career

He taught at Brown University before joining the Harvard faculty in 1953.[1]

Firth is noted for his defense of the ideal observer theory in ethics[2] and for his exploration of radical empiricism.[3] Firth also defended a form of semantic holism which he referred to as a "coherence theory of concepts" distinct from both the coherence theory of truth and coherence theory of justification.[4] Firth debated his views on the nature of concept formation and epistemic privilege with Wilfrid Sellars against whom he defended the views of C. I. Lewis.[5][6]

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "Roderick Firth, Philosophy Professor, 70". The New York Times. December 27, 1987. p. 136.
  2. [2]
    Firth, Roderick (March 1952). "Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 12 (3): 317–345. doi:10.2307/2103988. JSTOR 2103988.
  3. [3]
    1964 Journal of Philosophy 61 (19):545-557.
  4. [4]
    Firth, R. (1964). Coherence, Certainty, and Epistemic Priority. The Journal of Philosophy, 61(19), 545-557.
  5. [5]
    Sellars, W. (1981). Foundations for a metaphysics of pure process: The Carus lectures of Wilfrid Sellars. The Monist, 64(1).
  6. [6]
    Firth, R. (1981). Reply to Sellars. The Monist, 64(1), 91-101.


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