A Radical Solution to the Race Problem

Philosophy of Science 81 (5):1025-1038 (2014)
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Abstract

It has become customary among philosophers and biologists to claim that folk racial classification has no biological basis. This paper attempts to debunk that view. In this paper, I show that ‘race’, as used in current U.S. race talk, picks out a biologically real entity. I do this by, first, showing that ‘race’, in this use, is not a kind term, but a proper name for a set of human population groups. Next, using recent human genetic clustering results, I show that this set of human population groups is a partition of human populations that I call ‘the Blumenbach partition’.

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Quayshawn Spencer
University of Pennsylvania

Citations of this work

Interpretivism and norms.Devin Sanchez Curry - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (4):905-930.
Replacing Race: Interactive Constructionism about Racialized Groups.Adam Hochman - 2017 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4:61-92.
Against the New Metaphysics of Race.David Ludwig - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (2):244-265.
In defense of the metaphysics of race.Adam Hochman - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (11):2709–2729.
Of Witches and White Folks.Daniel Wodak - 2021 - Wiley: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (3):587-605.

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References found in this work

Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Against the New Racial Naturalism.Adam Hochman - 2013 - Journal of Philosophy 110 (6):331–51.
How we divide the world.Michael Root - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (3):639.
What 'biological racial realism' should mean.Quayshawn Spencer - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 159 (2):181-204.

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