"Du Bois" / "Race"

Contemporary philosophers have devoted considerable attention to W. E. B. Du Bois's definition of race in "The Conservation of Races" (1897). Indeed, they have given more attention to Du Bois's definition of race in that essay than to his treatment of any other philosophical issue elsewhere in his writings. Nearly all that attention can be traced to Kwame Anthony Appiah's controversial, early engagement with Du Bois in "The Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois and the Illusion of Race" (1985), an expanded version of which Appiah published as the second chapter of In My Father's House (1992). "Du Bois" and "race" belong together in the lexicon of Appiah's evolving philosophical thought because beginning with that early engagement, Du Bois has consistently served Appiah as a touchstone for measuring the significance of his own important contributions to the philosophy of race.