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.12
Education
Firth earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard in 1943. His thesis, supervised by C. I. Lewis, 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 ethics3 and for his exploration of radical empiricism.4 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.5 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.67
References
References
- "Roderick Firth, Philosophy Professor, 70". The New York Times. December 27, 1987. p. 136.
- "Firth Leads Mem Church Protest; Members of Clergy Attack Fasting | News | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved October 25, 2025.
- Firth, Roderick (March 1952). "Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 12 (3): 317–345. doi:10.2307/2103988. JSTOR 2103988.
- 1964 Journal of Philosophy 61 (19):545-557.
- Firth, R. (1964). Coherence, Certainty, and Epistemic Priority. The Journal of Philosophy, 61(19), 545-557.
- Sellars, W. (1981). Foundations for a metaphysics of pure process: The Carus lectures of Wilfrid Sellars. The Monist, 64(1).
- Firth, R. (1981). Reply to Sellars. The Monist, 64(1), 91-101.