Franklin, Alexander (2026) How Race Is Socially Constructed. In: UNSPECIFIED.

Text SocialConstructionShortPaper.pdf Download (101kB)

Abstract

The claim that race is socially constructed establishes that the correlation of racial identity with various socioeconomic and health outcomes is due to social rather than (e.g.) biological factors. However a mainstream way of understanding the social construction of race – the view that race is essentially social – is sharply at odds with many
widely held intuitions about the nature of race (Hardimon (2017), Garcia (2019)). In this paper I defend a particular way of understanding the social construction of race such that it can satisfy such intuitions and debunk racialism. This account serves to naturalise the social construction of race, for it shows the commonality between social construction and other forms of emergence.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Franklin, Alexander alexander.r.franklin@kcl.ac.uk 0000-0001-6034-4575
Additional Information:	Conditionally accepted for publication in PSA 2026 Volume, Philosophy of Science
Keywords:	social construction race human kinds emergence debunking
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Natural Kinds General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science
Depositing User:	Dr Alexander Franklin
Date Deposited:	10 Jun 2026 12:31
Last Modified:	10 Jun 2026 12:31
Item ID:	30036
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Natural Kinds General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science
Date:	9 June 2026
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/30036

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item