Philosophy of Science and Race

Zack, Naomi

doi:10.4324/9781315880983

Cited by 48 publications

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“…However, radical racial pluralism goes farther than racial pluralism by accepting racial pluralism and adding that there isn't even a dominant answer to this question. For instance, Appiah (1992); Glasgow (2009); Hardimon (2017); Haslanger (2012); Taylor (2013); Zack (2002), and almost all other metaphysicians of race will agree that there is at least a dominant way that American English speakers use "race," and so, will agree that there is at least a dominant answer to the question of what race is and whether it's real in this particular context. However, I'm skeptical that the empirical data support this popular view.…”

Section: Defenses Of Social Racial Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Racial realism II: Are folk races real?”

Spencer

2017

Philosophy Compass

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This article is Part II in a pair of articles on racial realism. In Part I, Idefined "racial realism" and discussed the major attempts in the past twenty years among metaphysicians of race and biologists to defend racial realism from the viewpoint of what biologists mean by "race." In this article, I continue discussing and critiquing how metaphysicians of race have conceived of and defended racial realism, but with a focus on how ordinary people use "race." I focus on two broad groups of racial realisms in this article: biological racial realism and social racial realism. After defining each one, Isummarize a representative sample of recent attempts from metaphysicians of race to defend both types of racial realism. I also

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Section: Defenses Of Social Racial Realismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Racial realism II: Are folk races real?”

Spencer

2017

Philosophy Compass

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“…Many racial theorists have suggested that racial essentialism is criterial for the race concept (e.g. Zack 1993Zack , 2002Appiah 1995Appiah , 1998Blum 2002;Glasgow 2009). 4 On these views, "race" just means a sort of human group whose members have a distinguishing essence.…”

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Social Construction and Achieving Reference1

Mallon

2015

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One influential view is that at least some putatively natural human kinds are actually social constructions, understood as some real kind of thing that is produced or sustained by our social and conceptual practices. Category constructionists share two commitments: they hold that human category terms like "race" (and racial terms) and "sex" (and sexual terms) and "homosexuality" and "perversion" actually refer to constructed categories, and they hold that these categories are widely but mistakenly taken to be natural kinds. But it is far from clear that these two commitments are consistent. The sort of mismatch between belief and underlying nature constructionists' suppose is often taken to indicate a failure of reference. Reliance on a causal-historical account of reference allows the preservation of reference, but unfortunately, constructionists' appropriation of causal historical accounts of reference is beset by difficulties that do not attend natural kind theorists' appeals to such accounts. Here, I set out these difficulties, but argue that they can be answered, allowing terms for apparently natural human kinds refer to some sort of social construction about which there is massive error.

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“…Likewise, Mallon's distinction between metaphysical positions on race and normative positions on race talk in the quote above allows us to better understand cases where eliminativists regarding the existence of races can be, at the same time, advocates of race talk. Indeed, the form of race eliminativism put forward by Zack (2002) exemplifies such a case in that, even though she claims that races of any type do not exist, she also defends an alternative view of races (viz., a form of racial constructivism) according to which racial categories are socio-culturally constructed. In such a view, whereas the term 'race' is scientifically otiose, it can very well play a meaningful role in promoting, for example, race-based affirmative action aimed at favouring the well-being of members of certain disadvantaged groups.…”

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“…Indeed, genetic change does not always result in physically visible characteristics and (contrary to popular belief) even the most visible physical traits fail to work as a criterion to distinguish putative racial groups. For example, Zack (2002) has objected to the idea that the skin colour can be used to distinguish racial groups on the grounds that, because people's skin tones vary gradually rather than discretely, it is not possible to say that people with certain skin tone (e.g., white) always differ from people with a different skin tone (e.g., black) in the same way. Moreover, people who are classified into different races can sometimes be judged to differ from one another less than some people who are supposed to be of the same race.…”

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“…Thus, as the argument goes, because there is no notion of essences that can be said to biologically ground divisions of human beings in terms of visible physical traits, there are no grounds for the existence of a scientificallyinteresting category of race. If scientific realism is embraced, such as in the case of Zack (2002), then being an eliminativist about the scientific category of race amounts to a metaphysical claim regarding the putative category of race, just as with other displaced prescientific notions such as phlogiston, humors, etc.…”

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A proposed taxonomy of eliminativism

Pino

2017

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In this paper, I propose a general taxonomy of different forms of eliminativism. In order to do so, I begin by exploring eliminativism from a broad perspective, providing a comparative picture of eliminativist projects in different domains. This exploration shows that eliminativism is a label used for a family of related types of eliminativist arguments and claims. The proposed taxonomy is an attempt to systematise those arguments and claims. Keywords:Eliminativism, eliminativist argument, eliminativist claim, theoretical adequacy. Una propuesta de taxonomía para el eliminativismoEn este artículo, propongo una taxonomía general de diferentes formas de eliminativismo. Para alcanzar este propósito, comienzo por explorar el eliminativismo desde una perspectiva amplia, proporcionando un cuadro comparativo de proyectos eliminativistas en dominios distintos. Esta exploración muestra cómo el término 'eliminativismo' es utilizado para caracterizar una familia de diversos tipos de afirmaciones y argumentos eliminativistas relacionados. La taxonomía propuesta es un intento de sistematización de dichos argumentos y afirmaciones. Palabras clave:Eliminativismo, argumentos eliminativistas, afirmaciones eliminativistas, adecuación teórica. AbstractResumen

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Philosophy of Science and Race

Cited by 48 publications

References 0 publications

“Racial realism II: Are folk races real?”

“Racial realism II: Are folk races real?”

Social Construction and Achieving Reference1

A proposed taxonomy of eliminativism

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