Visual essentialism & social kinds. (3rd August 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tullmann, Katie
• Is Part Of: Journal for the theory of social behaviour. Volume 52:Number 2(2022)
• Page Start: 242
• Page End: 259
• Publication Date: 2021-08-03
• Subjects: cultural evolution -- essentialism -- gender -- perception -- perceptual learning -- race; Psychology -- Periodicals; Human behavior -- Periodicals; Social psychology -- Periodicals; 301.105
• DOI: 10.1111/jtsb.12318
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0021-8308

Abstract

Abstract: Scholars increasingly deny that they are strictly biological. Instead, these scholars argue that they are socially constructed. One challenge is to square the notion of social kinds with the apparent perception of those categories. I argue that we do not perceive social categories such as race. Instead, racial categories are visually encoded based on visible markers that are proxies for social kinds. Thus, I argue that the assumption of seeing social categories commits us to a flawed theory of visual essentialism : the idea that some social kinds are visible properties that are biologically determined.