Race as a cluster concept: a new social realism about race

Race talk is talk about groups whose nature is presently under debate. This thesis deals with the question of whether the concept of race can account for the nature of the groups race talk is about. I argue that these groups are properly accounted for and understood as social races (rather than biological races or racialized groups) through specifying the meaning of race as a cluster concept. The method of specification that I develop using the cluster concept is an approach that draws inspiration from Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance. My argument is that the concept of race is constituted by a heterogenous set of ideas about human group divisions that is held together as a concept by the similarities or resemblances that conceptions of race share with one another. I argue that formulating race as a cluster concept has numerous benefits over competing accounts and stipulations of the concept of race. The case that I make is that the cluster concept best accounts for the groups of race talk on a number of fronts. I argue that it provides us with the most compelling metaphysical account of races and what race talk is about, and it provides the best framework for—and account of—the heterogeneity of race’s ontological schemata (and the diversity of their context-specific formulations). Overall, I argue that the cluster concept of race outcompetes rival accounts of race in achieving the normative and theoretical goals set for the concept of race.