Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah to deliver George W. Gay Lecture at Harvard Medical School
A professor of philosophy and law at New York University and the “Ethicist” columnist for The New York Times Magazine, Kwame Anthony Appiah will touch on themes from his new book, “The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity,” when he visits Harvard Medical School Thursday to deliver this year’s George W. Gay Lecture. The Gazette spoke to Appiah about how misconceptions have skewed our understandings of ourselves, and how a more constructive approach to identity could help foster greater harmony. Q&A Kwame Anthony Appiah GAZETTE: In your new book, you argue that the collective identities that help define us are almost all rooted in false assumptions. What are some examples you like to cite? APPIAH: I think race involves usually mistaken or misleading ideas about biology. It involves the idea that the social identity of black, white, Hispanic, Asian-American, and so on refers to some important biological property, and that isn’t true. More importantly, perhaps, it isn’t true...