Author Description
Across Public Discourse, In The Media, Politics, Many Branches Of Academic Inquiry, And Ordinary Daily Interactions, We Spend A Lot Time Talking About Race: Race Relations, Racial Violence, Discrimination Based On Race, Racial Integration, Racial Progress. It Is Fair To Say That Questions About Race Have Vexed Our Social Life. But For All We Speak About Race, Do We Know What Race Is? Is It A Social Construct Or A Biological Object? Is It A Bankrupt Holdover From A Time Before Sophisticated Scientific Understanding And Genetics, Or Can It Still Hold Up In Biological, Genetic, And Other Types Of Research? Most Fundamentally, Is Race Real? In This Book, Four Prominent Philosophers And Race Theorists Debate How Best To Answer These Difficult Questions, Applying Philosophical Tools And The Principles Of Social Justice To Cutting-edge Findings From The Biological And Social Sciences. Each Presents A Distinct View Of Race: Sally Haslanger Argues That Race Is A Socio-political Reality. Chike Jeffers Maintains That Race Is Not Only Political But Also, Importantly, Cultural. Quayshawn Spencer Pursues The Idea That Race Is Biologically Real. And Joshua Glasgow Argues That Either Race Is Not Real, Or If It Is, It Must Be Real In A Way That Is Neither Social Nor Biological. Each Offers An Argument For Their Own View And Then Replies To The Others. Woven Together, The Result Is A Lively Debate That Opens Up Numerous Ways Of Understanding Race. Above All, It Is Call For Sophisticated And Principled Discussion Of Something That Significantly Permeates Our Lives.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates the fundamental ontological question of what race is by debating whether it functions as a social construct, a biological reality, or a conceptual error. The authors, all prominent philosophers and race theorists, utilize a structured debate format to synthesize findings from genetics, biology, and social science. By presenting four distinct, competing frameworks, the text aims to move beyond superficial discourse and establish a more rigorous, principled vocabulary for discussing racial identity in contemporary society.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Four distinct philosophical positions on the nature of race: socio-political, cultural, biological, and eliminativist/skeptical.
- A comparative analysis of how race is defined across different academic disciplines.
- A series of direct rebuttals and counter-arguments between the four contributors.
Scope Limits
- The text does not provide a single, unified consensus or a definitive answer to the question of race.
- It does not focus on historical narratives of racial conflict, but rather on the conceptual and ontological definitions of the category itself.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Experts and academics frequently cite this work as a primary resource for understanding the current landscape of philosophy of race. Readers often note that the debate format makes complex, dense theoretical arguments accessible while highlighting the significant disagreements that persist within the field.
Page Count:
328
Publication Date:
2019-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190610190
ISBN-13:
9780190610197
Philosophy
Social Science
Race Studies
Sociology