About me

I am a philosopher, best known for my work on “race”. I argue that there are no races, only racialised groups.

I also work more generally in philosophy of science, focusing on biology and psychology.

I’m based at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, where I have an ongoing position.

In my spare time I like to make pottery and paint weird abstract scenes.

This is my greyhound Pegasus. Go on, click on her link. She’s cute.

Publications

Media

This is a piece I wrote for The Conversation. It would be a good place to start for those wanting to get a general sense of my work.

This recasts my article in The Du Bois Review for a broader audience. It offers a new solution to the debate about the origins of “race”.

In this piece I connect my work on the metaphysics of race with questions of personal identity

This is a radio interview I did for ABC Radio National’s The Philosopher’s Zone. The interviewer is Joe Gelonesi and the other guest is Prof. Justin E H Smith.

Major Research Projects, Grants and Awards

2019 – 2021

Social Constructionism About Race, Deconstructed

I am currently on a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC). Valued at over half a million dollars, it allows me to focus primarily on my research for three years.

Project Summary

This project aims to show that there are no races, only racialised groups. Race was once thought to be biologically real, a position which is increasingly rejected by specialists. Now race is commonly believed to be a social construct, which is often taken to mean that races are real social groups. This project aims to demonstrate that when race is defined socially it loses its conceptual and historical specificity, and that racial classification should be abandoned altogether. An expected outcome of the project is a scholarly and public shift away from racial classification. This project develops and defends the category of the racialised group as an alternative to one of history’s most misleading and dangerous ideas.

2015 – 2018

What is This Thing Called Race?

In 2014 my PhD was conferred. In 2015 I was awarded a Macquarie University Research Fellowship, which is a highly competitive three-year research grant.

Project Summary

The debate about the biological reality of race is raging once again. There is an emerging consensus regarding the facts about human biological diversity. However, this is not moving the debate toward a resolution because scholars are employing different definitions of ‘race’. Defend a strong definition of race – such as the view that races are human subspecies – and racial naturalism is clearly false (there are no human subspecies). However, defend a weak definition of race – such as the view that races are genetically identifiable geographical populations – and racial naturalism appears to be true. In this project I drew on philosophy of language, genetic anthropology, and the history of the race concept to argue against weak definitions of race.  We should give race a substantive biological definition, and conclude that race fails as a biological category.

2010 – 2014

Beyond Biological Naturalism and Social Constructionism about Race: An Interactive Constructionist Approach to Racialisation

In 2010 I was offered an Australian Postgraduate Award to support my PhD thesis. It contained the seeds of ideas that I am still growing, and publishing.

Project Summary

What is this thing called ‘race’? There are at least three possible answers to this deceptively simple little question. Race might be biologically real, socially real, or not real at all. These three metaphysical positions are known as racial naturalism, social constructionism about race, and anti-realism about race, respectively. In this thesis I argue for anti-realism about race. While anti-realism is the right metaphysical position about race, or so I will argue, it leaves an explanatory gap. Race naturalists and social constructionists are talking about something, and the anti-realist about race needs to account for that something, whatever it is. To fill the explanatory gap I introduce a new kind of constructionism. Borrowing from developmental systems theory (DST) I call it ‘interactive constructionism’. Unlike social constructionism, interactive constructionism is not about race. Rather, it is about racialised groups. We should be careful not to conflate the two. Racialised groups are real, races are not. Interactive constructionism offers a framework for understanding how and why groups, which are not properly described as races, become racialised.

2009 – 2010

The Phylogeny Fallacy and the Ontogeny Fallacy

In 2009 I was awarded an Honours Scholarship by University of Sydney.

Project Summary

In this project I offer a new and improved understanding of the phylogeny fallacy and I identify a new fallacy of explanation in the biological sciences: the ontogeny fallacy. I argue that the phylogeny fallacy is best understood to occur when a proposed proximate explanation is no more than an evolutionary explanation in disguise (e.g., in unsubstantiated claims that a trait is directed by a “genetic program” produced by natural selection). Having thus defined the phylogeny fallacy, I identify its counterpart—its mirror image—in the ontogeny fallacy. The ontogeny fallacy is committed when a proposed evolutionary explanation is a proximate explanation in disguise (e.g., in claims that population-level evolutionary analysis is unnecessary, because phylogeny or evolutionary history is a successive sequence of ontogenies or developmental histories). Evolutionary theorists are prone to commit the phylogeny fallacy, while developmentalists are prone to commit the ontogeny fallacy. These fallacies are conflations of how and why questions. This project contributes to our understanding of how explanation works, and fails to work, in the biological sciences.

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