Race realism goes both ways
We examine the philosophy of race from the perspective of the identified problems with such a philosophy - domain problems, deference problems and mismatch problems. Any philosophy of race should consider at least two domains of human endeavor - the social and the natural. In most cases the social domain defers to the natural domain for a biological explanation for race. Some researchers suggest that there is an impasse in the natural domain that keeps the door open for a biological explanation of race. We examine this purported impasse and conclude that there is a complete lack of scientific support for the existence of human races, and that hence the impasse is a mirage. The inference of no biological races is not, however, a non-result. The consequent lack of support for biological races can be acknowledged by social scientists in formulating their social domain-oriented ontology of race.
Authors
- Rob DeSalle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6490-7109)
- Ian Tattersall
Institutions
- American Museum of Natural History (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- History & Philosophy of the Life Sciences
- Published
- 2025-02-10
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-024-00658-y
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Race, Genetics, and Society
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.63