Abstract

Although the philosophy of race has been the center of attention for many philosophers, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the metaphysics of race has lagged behind. Also lagging has been the attention paid by analytic philosophers to race in general and the metaphysics of race in particular. Most analytic philosophers have tended to address what they consider to be more pressing practical problems having to do with the ethics and politics of race. This contrasts with the greater emphasis that Continental philosophers, for example, have given race, although they, even more than analytic philosophers, have neglected the metaphysics of race. The purpose of this article is to bring attention to some samples of the work from philosophers who work roughly within the analytic tradition in the metaphysics of race, including Robin O. Andreasen, Kwame Anthony Appiah, J. Angelo Corlett, J.L.A. García, Joshua Glasgow, Jorge J. E. Gracia, and Naomi Zack. Many others deserve attention, such as Ian Hacking, Michael Hardimon, Sally Haslanger, and Michael Root, but space limitations make it impossible to do proper justice to their views.