ABSTRACT
This chapter argues the need to conserve the 'race' and 'ethnie' as the vital components of a philosophical anthropology, and of a social and political philosophy, more adequate in the present and near future to the exigencies of life in racially and ethnically complex societies. It uses the 'race' to refer to a group of persons who share, more or less, biologically transmitted physical characteristics that, under the influence of endogenous cultural and geographical factors as well as exogenous social and political factors, contribute to the characterization of the group as a distinct, self-reproducing, encultured population. Revisionary projects have generated a storm of criticism, especially from prominent persons in educational and cultural institutions, government agencies, news media, and politics. While Hirsch's argument with Dewey is not immediately focused on raciality and ethnicity, certainly his concern is especially close to one of the crucial issues at the heart of the debate over 'multi-culturalism'.
