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  1. Why Social Constructionists Should Embrace Minimalist Race.Michael Hardimon - 2022 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 60 (S1):37-53.
    My thesis is that social constructionists should embrace minimalist race. By this I mean they should accept the minimalist concept of race and the existence of minimalist races. They are likely to reject this suggestion because they are antirealists about biological race. But their antirealism about biological race is based on their identification of the biological concept of race with the racialist concept of race. The minimalist concept of race is free of the invidious features that make the racialist concept (...)
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  2. On Progress: The Role of Race in Kant’s Philosophy of History.Elvira Basevich - 2021 - In Camilla Serck-Hanssen & Beatrix Himmelmann (eds.), Proceedings of the 13th International Kant Congress ‘The Court of Reason’. Boston: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 1697-1706.
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  3. Of Witches and White Folks.Daniel Wodak - 2021 - Wiley: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (3):587-605.
    A central debate in philosophy of race is between eliminativists and conservationists about what we ought do with ‘race’ talk. ‘Eliminativism’ is often defined such that it’s committed to holding that (a) ‘race’ is vacuous and races don’t exist, so (b) we should eliminate the term ‘race’ from our vocabulary. As a stipulative definition, that’s fine. But as an account of one of the main theoretical options in the debate, it’s a serious mistake. I offer three arguments for why eliminativism (...)
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  4. Janus‐faced race: Is race biological, social, or mythical?Adam Hochman - 2020 - American Journal of Physical Anthropology 1.
    As belief in the reality of race as a biological category among U.S. anthropologists has fallen, belief in the reality of race as a social category has risen in its place. The view that race simply does not exist—that it is a myth—is treated with suspicion. While racial classification is linked to many of the worst evils of recent history, it is now widely believed to be necessary to fight back against racism. In this article, I argue that race is (...)
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  5. Is “Race” Modern? Disambiguating the Question.Adam Hochman - 2020 - Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 1:1-19.
    Race theorists have been unable to reach a consensus regarding the basic historical question, “is ‘race’ modern?” I argue that this is partly because the question itself is ambiguous. There is not really one question that race scholars are answering, but at least six. First, is the concept of race modern? Second, is there a modern concept of race that is distinct from earlier race concepts? Third, are “races” themselves modern? Fourth, are racialized groups modern? Fifth, are the means and (...)
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  6. Understanding Race: The Case for Political Constructionism in Public Discourse.David Ludwig - 2020 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (4):492-504.
    The aim of this article is to develop an understanding-based argument for an explicitly political specification of the concept of race. It is argued that a specification of race in terms of hierarchical social positions is best equipped to guide causal reasoning about racial inequality in the public sphere. Furthermore, the article provides evidence that biological and cultural specifications of race mislead public reasoning by encouraging confusions between correlates and causes of racial inequality. The article concludes with a more general (...)
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  7. Racialization: A Defense of the Concept.Adam Hochman - 2019 - Ethnic and Racial Studies 42 (8):1245-1262.
    This paper defends the concept of racialization against its critics. As the concept has become increasingly popular, questions about its meaning and value have been raised, and a backlash against its use has occurred. I argue that when “racialization” is properly understood, criticisms of the concept are unsuccessful. I defend a definition of racialization and identify its companion concept, “racialized group.” Racialization is often used as a synonym for “racial formation.” I argue that this is a mistake. Racial formation theory (...)
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  8. Race and Reference.Adam Hochman - 2019 - Biology and Philosophy 34 (2):32.
    The biological race debate is at an impasse. Issues surrounding hereditarianism aside, there is little empirical disagreement left between race naturalists and anti-realists about biological race. The disagreement is now primarily semantic. This would seem to uniquely qualify philosophers to contribute to the biological race debate. However, philosophers of race are reluctant to focus on semantics, largely because of their worries about the ‘flight to reference’. In this paper, I show how philosophers can contribute to the debate without taking the (...)
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  9. The Color of Childhood: The Role of the Child/Human Binary in the Production of Anti-Black Racism.Toby Rollo - 2018 - Journal of Black Studies 49 (4):307-329.
    The binary between the figure of the child and the fully human being is invoked with regularity in analyses of race, yet its centrality to the conception of race has never been fully explored. For most commentators, the figure of the child operates as a metaphoric or rhetorical trope, a non-essential strategic tool in the perpetuation of White supremacy. As I show in the following, the child/human binary does not present a contingent or merely rhetorical construction but, rather, a central (...)
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  10. Peons and Progressives: Race and Boosterism in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, 1904-1941.Cory Wimberly, Javier Martinez, Margarita Cavazos & David Munoz - 2018 - The Western Historical Quarterly (094).
    The Texas borderlands have come to be increasingly important in the historical literature and in public opinion for the way that the region shapes national thought on race, borders, and ethnicity. With this increasing importance, it is pressing to examine the history of these issues in the region so that they may be accurately and insightfully deployed. This article contributes to the existing scholarship with a close discursive analysis of race in the booster materials, 1904-1941. The booster materials forge a (...)
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  11. Social Construction and Grounding.Aaron M. Griffith - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (2):393-409.
    The aim of this paper is to bring recent work on metaphysical grounding to bear on the phenomenon of social construction. It is argued that grounding can be used to analyze social construction and that the grounding framework is helpful for articulating various claims and commitments of social constructionists, especially about social identities, e.g., gender and race. The paper also responds to a number of objections that have been leveled against the application of grounding to social construction from Elizabeth Barnes, (...)
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  12. Replacing Race: Interactive Constructionism about Racialized Groups.Adam Hochman - 2017 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4:61-92.
    In this paper I defend anti-realism about race and a new theory of racialization. I argue that there are no races, only racialized groups. Many social constructionists about race have adopted racial formation theory to explain how ‘races’ are formed. However, anti-realists about race cannot adopt racial formation theory, because it assumes the reality of race. I introduce interactive constructionism about racialized groups as a theory of racialization for anti-realists about race. Interactive constructionism moves the discussion away from the dichotomous (...)
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  13. In defense of the metaphysics of race.Adam Hochman - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (11):2709–2729.
    In this paper I defend the metaphysics of race as a valuable philosophical project against deflationism about race. The deflationists argue that metaphysical debate about the reality of race amounts to a non-substantive verbal dispute that diverts attention from ethical and practical issues to do with ‘race.’ In response, I show that the deflationists mischaracterize the field and fail to capture what most metaphysicians of race actually do in their work, which is almost always pluralist and very often normative and (...)
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  14. Race as Technology: From Posthuman Cyborg to Human Industry.Holly Jones & Nicholaos Jones - 2017 - Ilha Do Desterro 70 (2):39-51.
    Cyborg and prosthetic technologies frame prominent posthumanist approaches to understanding the nature of race. But these frameworks struggle to accommodate the phenomena of racial passing and racial travel, and their posthumanist orientation blurs useful distinctions between racialized humans and their social contexts. We advocate, instead, a humanist approach to race, understanding racial hierarchy as an industrial technology. Our approach accommodates racial passing and travel. It integrates a wide array of research across disciplines. It also helpfully distinguishes among grounds of racialization (...)
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  15. Applied Philosophy of Social Science: The Social Construction of Race.Isaac Wiegman & Ron Mallon - 2017 - In Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Kimberley Brownlee & David Coady (eds.), A Companion to Applied Philosophy. Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell. pp. 441-454.
    A traditional social scientific divide concerns the centrality of the interpretation of local understandings as opposed to attending to relatively general factors in understanding human individual and group differences. We consider one of the most common social scientific variables, race, and ask how to conceive of its causal power. We suggest that any plausible attempt to model the causal effects of such constructed social roles will involve close interplay between interpretationist and more general elements. Thus, we offer a case study (...)
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  16. Beyond the realism debate: The metaphysics of ‘racial’ distinctions.Olivier Lemeire - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 59:47-56.
    The current metaphysical race debate is very much focused on the realism question whether races exist. In this paper I argue against the importance of this question. Philosophers, biologists and anthropologists expect that answering this question will tell them something substantive about the metaphysics of racial classifications, and will help them to decide whether it is justified to use racial categories in scientific research and public policy. I argue that there are two reasons why these expectations are not fulfilled. First (...)
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  17. Realism, Antirealism, and Conventionalism about Race.Jonathan Michael Kaplan & Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (5):1039-1052.
    This paper distinguishes three concepts of "race": bio-genomic cluster/race, biological race, and social race. We map out realism, antirealism, and conventionalism about each of these, in three important historical episodes: Frank Livingstone and Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1962, A.W.F. Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin (1972), and contemporary discourse. Semantics is especially crucial to the first episode, while normativity is central to the second. Upon inspection, each episode also reveals a variety of commitments to the metaphysics of race. We conclude by interrogating (...)
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  18. Criticizing Social Reality from Within: Haslanger on Race, Gender, and Ideology.Titus Stahl - 2014 - Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy (1):5-12.
    This paper critically evaluates the semantic externalist conception of Race and Gender concepts put forward in Sally Haslanger's 2012 essay collection "Resisting Reality". I argue that her endorsement of "objective type externalism" limits the options for critique compared to social externalist approaches.
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  19. Racial discrimination: How not to do it.Adam Hochman - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (3):278-286.
    The UNESCO Statements on Race of the early 1950s are understood to have marked a consensus amongst natural scientists and social scientists that ‘race’ is a social construct. Human biological diversity was shown to be predominantly clinal, or gradual, not discreet, and clustered, as racial naturalism implied. From the seventies social constructionists added that the vast majority of human genetic diversity resides within any given racialised group. While social constructionism about race became the majority consensus view on the topic, social (...)
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  20. Against the New Racial Naturalism.Adam Hochman - 2013 - Journal of Philosophy 110 (6):331–51.
    Support for the biological concept of race declined slowly but steadily during the second half of the twentieth century. However, debate about the validity of the race concept has recently been reignited. Genetic-clustering studies have shown that despite the small proportion of genetic variation separating continental populations, it is possible to assign some individuals to their continents of origin, based on genetic data alone. Race naturalists have interpreted these studies as empirically confirming the existence of human subspecies, and by extension (...)
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  21. Confusions about Race: A New Installment.Neven Sesardic - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (3):287-293.
    In his criticism of my paper on the concept of race (Sesardic, 2010), Adam Hochman raises many issues that deserve further clarification. First, I will comment on Hochman’s claim that I attack a straw man version of racial constructionism. Second, I will try to correct what I see as a distorted historical picture of the debate between racial naturalists and racial constructionists. Third, I will point out the main weaknesses in Hochman’s own defense of constructionism about race. And fourth, I (...)
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  22. The Idea of a Scientific Concept of Race.Michael O. Hardimon - 2012 - Journal of Philosophical Research 37:249-282.
    This article challenges the orthodox view that there is and can be no scientifically valid concept of race applicable to human beings by presenting a candidate scientific concept of biological race. The populationist concept of race specifies that a “race” is a subdivision of Homo sapiens—a group of populations that exhibits a distinctive pattern of genetically transmitted phenotypic characters and that belongs to an endogamous biological lineage initiated by a geographically separated and reproductively isolated founding population. The viability of the (...)
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  23. Race as a Physiosocial Phenomenon.Catherine Kendig - 2011 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 33 (2):191-222.
    This paper offers both a criticism of and a novel alternative perspective on current ontologies that take race to be something that is either static and wholly evident at one’s birth or preformed prior to it. In it I survey and critically assess six of the most popular conceptions of race, concluding with an outline of my own suggestion for an alternative account. I suggest that race can be best understood in terms of one’s experience of his or her body, (...)
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  24. ¿La cosificación genética de la 'raza'? Un análisis crítico.Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther - 2011 - In Carlos López-Beltrán (ed.), Genes (&) mestizos. Genómica y raza en la biomedicina mexicana.
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  25. Toward a Political Philosophy of Race. [REVIEW]Andy Lamey - 2010 - African Studies Quarterly 11:4.
    Toward a Political Philosophy of Race, by Falguni Sheth, SUNY Press, 2009. Events involving the persecution of African‑Americans and other racial groups are normally thought to involve a pre-existing minority being singled out out for persecution. In Toward a Political Philosophy of Race, Falguni Sheth argues that this understanding gets the causal story backwards. In reality, a group that is perceived to pose a political threat has a racial identity imposed upon it by the state during episodes of oppression. On (...)
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  26. Mutants and the Metaphysics of Race.Jeremy Pierce - 2009 - In Rebecca Housel J. Jeremy Wisnewski (ed.), X-Men and Philosophy: Astonishing Insight and Uncanny Argument in the Mutant X-Verse. Wiley/Blackwell.
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  27. What good are our intuitions: Philosophical analysis and social kinds.Sally Haslanger - 2006 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 80 (1):89-118.
    Across the humanities and social sciences it has become commonplace for scholars to argue that categories once assumed to be “natural” are in fact “social” or, in the familiar lingo, “socially constructed”. Two common examples of such categories are race and gender, but there many others. One interpretation of this claim is that although it is typically thought that what unifies the instances of such categories is some set of natural or physical properties, instead their unity rests on social features (...)
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  28. What are we talking about? The semantics and politics of social kinds.Sally Haslanger - 2005 - Hypatia 20 (4):10-26.
    Theorists analyzing the concepts of race and gender disagree over whether the terms refer to natural kinds, social kinds, or nothing at all. The question arises: what do we mean by the terms? It is usually assumed that ordinary intuitions of native speakers are definitive. However, I argue that contemporary semantic externalism can usefully combine with insights from Foucauldian genealogy to challenge mainstream methods of analysis and lend credibility to social constructionist projects.
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  29. Why Darwin was English.Gabriel Finkelstein - 2000 - Endeavour 24 (2):76-78.
    A ‘late developer’ argument, common to Psychology and Economic History, can be used to explain cultural innovation. It argues that the 19th century theory of natural selection arose in England and not Germany because of – and not in spite of – England’s scientific backwardness. Measured in terms of institutions, communities, and ideas, the relative retardation of English science was precisely what enabled it to adopt German advances in novel ways.
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  30. Metaphors of Race: Theoretical Presuppositions behind Racism.Stephen T. Asma - 1995 - American Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1):13 - 29.
    Philosophers and scientists have historically conceptualized race according to two main metaphors; internal differentiation (theological, philosophical and genetic), and external differentiation (environmental). This paper examines these metaphors and theories in Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and also Darwin and the subsequent racial theories of recent history. The paper argues that the externalist metaphor has a more liberal and potentially egalitarian tradition.
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