Racial Ontology: 1. Introduction

In the first of a four part series, “Racial Ontology: A Guide for the Perplexed,”  David Miguel Gray (Colgate University) introduces general problems philosophers face when they ask the question “What kind of thing is Race?”.  In particular, what fields of inquiry should study race, if there can be racial ‘experts’, and what an account of race should look like if it is to capture the issues we care about.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The University of Memphis

Professor Gray joined the department in 2017. He is also an affiliate faculty member of the Institute for Intelligent Systems. He received his PhD and MA from Harvard University and his BA from Columbia University. Gray’s areas of specialization include Philosophy of Race and Racism, Philosophy of Psychology, African American Philosophy and Philosophy of Mind. His current research focuses and theories of race and racism, Black Nationalism (especially, Du Bois, Fanon, and Malcolm X), philosophy of psychopathology, and cognitive phenomenology. Gray also has interests in philosophy of language, logic, cognitive science, and philosophy of science (general, evolutionary biology, and cognitive psychology).

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