(Re-)Defining Racism

What is racism? is a timely question that is hotly contested in the philosophy of race. Yet disagreement about racism's nature does not begin in philosophy, but in the sociopolitical domain. Alberto G. Urquidez argues that philosophers of race have failed to pay sufficient attention to the practical considerations that prompt the question What is racism? Most theorists assume that racism signifies a language-independent phenomenon that needs to be discovered by the relevant science or uncovered by close scrutiny of everyday usage of this term. (Re-)Defining Racism challenges this metaphysical paradigm. Urquidez develops a Wittgenstein-inspired framework that illuminates the use of terms like definition, meaning, explanation of meaning, and disagreement, for the analysis of contested normative concepts. These elucidations reveal that providing a definition of racism amounts to recommending a form of moral representationa rule for the correct use of racism. As definitional recommendations must be justified on pragmatic grounds, Urquidez takes as a starting point for justification the interests of racism's historical victims.

Analyzes the concept of racism from a philosophical perspective Develops a Wittgenstein-inspired framework that illuminates the use of terms, like definition, meaning, explanation of meaning, and disagreement, in respect to contested normative concepts Written for philosophers of race and racism, philosophers of language and Wittgensteinian philosophers, and metaphilosophers interested in the nature of conceptual analysis

Auteur
Alberto G. Urquidez is currently a CFD Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy at Bowdoin College, USA. .

Contenu

Ch.1. Introduction: Summary of the Argument.- Ch.2. Introduction: Toward a Conventionalist Framework.- Ch. 3. Re-defining Definition: An Argument for Conventionalism.- Ch. 4. Re-defining Meaning: Defending Semantic Internalism Over Externalism.- Ch. 5. Re-defining Disagreement: Rationality Without Final Solutions.- Ch. 6. Re-defining Philosophical Analysis: Not Descriptive Analysis, Or Conservatism, But Pragmatic Revisionism.- Ch. 7. Adequacy Conditions for a Prescriptive Theory of Racism: Toward an Oppression-Centered Account.- Ch. 8. Racial Oppression and Grammatical Pluralism: A Critique of Jorge Garcia on Racist belief.- Ch. 9. Concluding Note. <p