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Cognitive/Evolutionary Psychology and the History of Racism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

John P. Jackson Jr.
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Abstract

Philosophical defenses of cognitive/evolutionary psychological accounts of racialism claim that classification based on phenotypical features of humans was common historically and is evidence for a species-typical, cognitive mechanism for essentializing. They conclude that social constructionist accounts of racialism must be supplemented by cognitive/evolutionary psychology. This article argues that phenotypical classifications were uncommon historically until such classifications were socially constructed. Moreover, some philosophers equivocate between two different meanings of “racial thinking.” The article concludes that social constructionist accounts are far more robust than psychological accounts for the origins of racialism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 2 , April 2017 , pp. 296 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Frank Dikötter, Georgina Irby, Mark Largent, and Mathew Kopec for their advice and encouragement. All remaining errors are my own.

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