David Livingstone Smith blogs about 鈥楾he Race Delusion鈥

David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, recently wrote a piece titled 鈥淭he Race Delusion鈥 on the Philosophy Talk Community of Thinkers blog.

In his post, Smith challenges the notion that race represents 鈥済enuine divisions of the human family,鈥 and suggests, rather, that it is a social construct.

He likens racial categories like 鈥渂lack,鈥 鈥渨hite,鈥 and 鈥淎sian鈥 to the category of 鈥減ets,鈥 explaining that distinguishing between pets and non-pet animals requires knowledge about social practices rather than knowledge of biological facts.  He notes, 鈥淪trange as it may sound, a person could know all there is to know about human biology and still not know whether two people are members of the same of different races.鈥