Abstract

Constructivists holds that social facts are what make race. One prominent version of this view is historical: it claims that historical social facts make race. Famously, this view has been accused (by Appiah) of being circular or (as emphasized by Gooding-Williams) redundant. Recently historicalism has been defended against this view by Paul Taylor and Jorge Gracia. It is argued here that these defenses only work at the cost of making historicalism indeterminate.