Why I Write So Many Books About Race

Abstract

I relate how my life has intersected with my work in philosophy, both before and after a twenty-year absence from academia. Motivations for engaging in Philosophy of Race may be different from other projects because the subject itself is urgent and the philosopher may be a person of color. I describe the development of my own writing in this subfield, from ontological issues in the philosophy of science to moral issues in political philosophy and cultural criticism. The first addressed the biological reality of human racial taxonomy and the second has been about the inadequacy of treatments of race in the history of philosophy and injustice in contemporary social constructions of race.

Keywords

• Race
• mixed race
• ethics and equality
• philosophy of science and race