It is common in various quarters of philosophy to derive philosophically significant conclusions from theories of reference. In this paper, we argue that philosophers should give up on such 'arguments from reference.' Intuitions play a central role in establishing theories of reference, and recent cross-cultural work suggests that intuitions about reference vary across cultures and between individuals within a culture (Machery et al. 2004). We argue that accommodating this variation within a theory of reference undermines arguments from reference.

How can there be so much apparent disagreement about what race is, when there is so much agreement on the facts surrounding race? In this paper, I develop this puzzle and consider several interpretations of work in the philosophy of race to try to answer it, several ways of understanding what the metaphysics of race is doing. I consider and reject the possibility that apparent disagreement is metaphysically substantive, and I also consider and reject the view that apparent disagreement primarily (...) reflects semantic disagreements. Instead, I suggest that apparent first-order disagreement over the existence and character of race is a part of a broader, metalinguistic negotiation or conversation about how racial terms can or ought to be used, and I note a range of considerations—including semantic, pragmatic, epistemic, and ethical—that properly play a role in this discussion. (shrink)