Abstract

© Mind Association 2018This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model...It starts when someone, often a highly visible someone, challenges a widely used and commonly accepted idea. In stage two, defenders of conventional wisdom recruit complicated and unexpected theories to save common sense. Statistics may be involved. Jargon is likely. In the third stage, the common-sense-preserving theories are themselves critiqued. At this point, some may rekindle the proposal to eliminate the idea. Others recommend previously unnoticed compromises.And then it happens. In the tangled woods of mature academic discourse, one or two lonely thinkers howl above the blowing winds: ‘Wait!’ they cry, ‘That original, basic folk theory wasn’t so bad to begin with!’A few decades ago, the idea of race entered this familiar cycle. K. Anthony Appiah and Naomi Zack argued, for very different...