Richard Boyd

Richard Newell Boyd (born 19 May 1942, Washington, D.C., USA; Ph.D. MIT 1970) 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.

His co-edited book The Philosophy of Science (ISBN 0-262-52156-3) is used in undergraduate and graduate philosophy courses. Boyd's doctoral thesis, directed by Hilary Putnam, is called "A recursion-theoretic characterization of the ramified analytical hierarchy".

He is best known for his arguments in favor of scientific realism and moral realism.

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References

Richard Boyd Barrett

Richard Boyd Barrett (born 1967) is an Irish politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dún Laoghaire constituency since 2011.

He is a former member of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council, and chair of the Irish Anti-War Movement and on multiple occasions has been cited on war issues in the Irish media. He opposed the Iraq War and helped organise protests against it in 2003, amid concerns that the war would lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths. Domestically, he has campaigned to reverse job losses, supported the Rossport Five and voiced opposition to Ireland's bank-bail outs and the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) among other issues.

Boyd Barrett was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 2011 general election. He is known for what The Irish Times described as his "consistently passionate outrage and opposition to the Government's handling of the financial and banking crisis."

Family and education

Richard Boyd Barrett was adopted as a baby. His birth mother is actress Sinéad Cusack, with whom he was later reunited. This was revealed in the last week of his unsuccessful 2007 Dáil election campaign, during which Cusack, a vocal opponent of the Iraq War, canvassed for him. In May 2013, he claimed that theatre director Vincent Dowling was his biological father.

Richard

The Germanic first or given name Richard derives from German, French, and English "ric" (ruler, leader, king) and "hard" (strong, brave), and it therefore means "powerful leader". Nicknames include "Dick", "Dickie", "Rich", "Richie", "Rick", "Ricky", "Rickey", and others.

"Richard" is a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Dutch. It can also be used as a French, Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian name.

People named Richard

Rulers and aristocrats

Oireachtas

The Oireachtas (/ˈɛrəktəs/), sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the legislature of Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of:

The houses of the Oireachtas sit in Leinster House in Dublin, an eighteenth-century ducal palace. The directly elected Dáil is by far the more powerful branch of the Oireachtas.

Etymology

The term oireachtas (Irish pronunciation: [ˈiːɾʲəxt̪ˠasˠ]) derives from the Old Irish word airech ("nobleman"). Its first recorded use as the name of a legislative body was within the Irish Free State.

Composition

Dáil Éireann, the lower house, is directly elected under universal suffrage of all Irish and United Kingdom citizens who are resident and at least eighteen years of age. An election is held at least once in every five years as required by law. However the house can usually be dissolved at any time at the request of the Taoiseach (head of government). Dáil elections occur under the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. The Dáil has had 166 members since 1981. The Seanad is not directly elected but consists of a mixture of members selected in a number of ways. 43 senators are elected by councillors and parliamentarians, 11 are appointed by the Taoiseach, and six are elected by two university constituencies, giving a total of 60 members. The President of Ireland is directly elected once in every seven years, for a maximum of two terms. However, if, as has occurred on a number of occasions, a consensus among the larger political parties can result in only a single candidate being nominated, then no actual ballot occurs.