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Harold Stoner Clark Lectures

'The Metaphysical Problem in Race Theory,' Quayshawn Spencer

Harold Stoner Clark Lectures

Quayshawn Spencer is the Robert S. Blank Presidential Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds both a PhD in philosophy and an MS in biology from Stanford University. Spencer specializes in philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of race. He focuses on metaphysical problems such as how to define “natural kind,” whether biological populations can have fuzzy temporal parts, and whether any folk racial classification divides humans into real biological groups. Among his journal articles on race and biology, Spencer is best known for “What ‘biological racial realism’ should mean” in Philosophical Studies and “A Radical Solution to the Race Problem” in Philosophy of Science. With Oxford University Press, he is one of the authors of What is Race? Four Philosophical Views and editor of the forthcoming volume The Race Debates from Metaphysics to Medicine.

In these lectures, Spencer argues that five human populations identified in a landmark 2002 study of human genomes may be thought of as races, and explores the implications of this for federally funded clinical research in medical genetics.

11:10 a.m. – "When Population Genetics Meets the Metaphysics of Race"
4 p.m. – "A Radical Solution to the Race Problem"

Admission is free. The Harold Stoner Clark Lecture Series, endowed by the late Mr. Clark and sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, was established in 1985.

A pre-lecture discussion will be led by assistant professor Brian J. Collins at 2:15 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14, in Overton Hall.

Sponsored By
Philosophy Department

Contact

Xiang Chen
805-493-3235

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