'Tricky truths: How should alethic pluralism accommodate racial truths?'

null, Phila Msimang (University of Stellenbosch), null, Ragnar Van Der Merwe (University of Johannesburg, University of Stellenbosch), Will Gamester (University of Leeds)

We are pleased to announce the first VICTR Emerging Truth Scholars Workshop Session, which will feature a talk by Ragnar van der Merwe (University of Johannesburg) and Phila Msimang (Stellenbosch University) entitled 'Tricky truths: How should alethic pluralism accommodate racial truths?', with commentary from Will Gamester (University of Leeds).  

The session will be held virtually on Monday October 2 at 10am US Eastern Time / 16:00 SAST / 15:00 BST / 14:00 UTC.  

Abstract:
Some alethic pluralists maintain that there are two kinds of truths operant in our alethic discourse: a realist and an anti-realist kind. In this paper, we argue that such a binary conception cannot accommodate certain social truths, specifically truths about race. Most alethic pluralists surprisingly overlook the status of racial truths. Douglas Edwards is, however, an exception. In his version of alethic pluralism – Determination Pluralism – racial truths are superassertible (anti-realist) true rather than correspondence (realist) true. Working from within the framework of alethic pluralism, we argue that racial truths exhibit features of both superassertibility (anti-realism) and correspondence (realism). This suggests a fuzzy boundary between realist and anti-realist kinds of truth. There may be a continuum rather than a dichotomy of truths. We conclude by sketching one way for alethic pluralists to accommodate such a notion.