Richard Boyd

Richard Newell Boyd (May 19, 1942 – February 20, 2021) was an American philosopher who spent most of his career teaching philosophy at Cornell University, where he was Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy and Humane Letters. He specialized in epistemology, the philosophy of science, language, and mind. Boyd earned his S.B. in mathematics from MIT in 1963 and his Ph.D. in philosophy from MIT in 1970, with his doctoral thesis focusing on mathematical logic. After teaching at Harvard, the University of Michigan, and UC Berkeley, he joined Cornell University in 1972. He became known for his arguments supporting scientific realism and moral realism. In scientific realism, he defended the "miracle argument," suggesting that the success of scientific theories implies their approximate truth. In moral realism, he was a proponent of "Cornell Realism," viewing moral properties as complex natural properties with causal influence. Additionally, Boyd, alongside Hilary Putnam and Jerry Fodor, influenced an anti-reductionist form of materialism in the philosophy of mind, asserting that while psychological states are physical, psychological explanations do not necessarily reduce to more basic sciences.