David Livingstone Smith blogs about ā€˜The Race Delusion’

David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, recently wrote a piece titled ā€œThe Race Delusionā€ on the Philosophy Talk Community of Thinkers blog.

In his post, Smith challenges the notion that race represents ā€œgenuine divisions of the human family,ā€ and suggests, rather, that it is a social construct.

He likens racial categories like ā€œblack,ā€ ā€œwhite,ā€ and ā€œAsianā€ to the category of ā€œpets,ā€ explaining that distinguishing between pets and non-pet animals requires knowledge about social practices rather than knowledge of biological facts.  He notes, ā€œStrange 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.ā€