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"What is Race?"

This session will present and defend alternative and competing answers to the question “What is race?” from two leading philosophers of race."

Quayshawn Spencer is the Robert S. Blank Presidential Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He has a PhD in philosophy and an MS in biology from Stanford University. He specializes in philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of race. His research focuses on metaphysical problems in his areas of specialization, and his work has appeared in a wide range of philosophy journals, such as Philosophy of Science and Philosophical Studies.

His research has been funded by the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the American Philosophical Association. He is a co-author of What is Race? Four Philosophical Views, which was published with Oxford University Press in 2019. He is also the editor of The Race Debates from Metaphysics to Medicine, a forthcoming edited volume with Oxford University Press. He is an editorial board member for multiple philosophy journals—such as Ergo and Biology & Philosophy—and handles primarily race-related submissions to those journals.

Chike Jeffers is an associate professor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He specializes in Africana philosophy and philosophy of race, with broad interests in social and political philosophy and ethics. He co-authored What is Race? Four Philosophical Views with Quayshawn Spencer as well as Sally Haslanger and Joshua Glasgow.

He is currently working on a book-length introduction to W.E.B. Du Bois as a philosopher. He is also co-author with Peter Adamson of the scripted episodes of a podcast, the History of Africana Philosophy, a part of the larger series, A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps.