What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to critically assess the validity of racial measurements in social sciences and their implications for the realism of race.

February 2, 2026Philosophy of the Social Sciences0 citations

Measurement, Race, and Anti-Realism

MDM.A. Diamond-Hunter

Key Points

The aim is to critically assess the validity of racial measurements in social sciences and their implications for the realism of race.
Analyzes existing survey instruments used in social sciences to measure race
Identifies epistemic issues affecting the success of racial measurements
Explores metaphysical implications of challenges to the reality of race
Argues that measurements of race are not successful due to several inherent epistemic problems
Concludes that a realist interpretation of race is unsupported by empirical measurements
Proposes an alternative metaphysical framework that does not rely on coherent empirical measures of race

Abstract

Measurement of racial populations is commonplace in many social sciences, and metaphysical accounts for the reality of race implicitly assume race is real because measurements of racial populations are successful, and therefore are best explained by a realist account of race. This paper challenges the first premise in this implicit argument: measurements of race in the social sciences are not successful due to a number of epistemic issues with the use of race in social-scientific survey instruments. The paper concludes by pointing towards a metaphysical solution that does not assume that empirical measures of race are coherent.

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