This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues.Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. There has recently been emphasis put on providing two-factor accounts of monothematic delusions. Such accounts would explain (1) whether a delusional hypothesis (e.g. someone else is inserting thoughts into my mind) can be understood as a prima facie reasonable response to an experience and (2) why such a delusional hypothesis is believed and maintained given its implausibility and evidence against it. I argue that if we are to avoid obfuscating the cognitive mechanisms involved in monothematic delusion formation we should split the first factor (1 above) into two factors: how abnormal experience can give rise to a delusional 'proto-hypothesis' and how a 'proto-hypothesis' in consort with normal experiences and background information, can be developed into a delusional hypothesis. In particular I will argue that a schizophrenic is faced with the unusual requirement of having to identify an introspectively accessible thought as one's own, and that this requirement of identification is the central experiential abnormality of thought insertion, auditory verbal hallucination, and alien control (i.e. passivity symptoms). Additionally, I will consider non-experiential factors which are required for the formation of a delusional hypothesis.

I argue that standard explanations of Du Bois' theory of race inappropriately characterize his view as attempting to provide descriptive criteria for races. Such an interpretation makes it both susceptible to Appiah's circularity objection and alienates it from Du Bois' central project of solidarity-which is the central point of "Conservation." I propose that we should understand his theory as providing a normative account of race: an attempt to characterize what some races should be in terms of what other races are. In providing such an account I will also show how my interpretation of Du Bois' criteria avoids the circularity objection by making the criteria central to the project of solidarity. Thus, this interpretation avoids what I take to be the two main problems with standard descriptive explanations of Du Bois' criteria.

The theme of this year's Spindel Conference was Social Ontologies of Race. This editorial introduction serves as both a general introduction to the topic of racial ontology and an introduction to this volume's contributions and their development of the debate.

An introduction to the posthumously published essay by Charles Mills, "The Wretched of Middle-Earth: An Orkish Manifesto."The recent death of Charles Wade Mills (January 3, 1951-September 20, 2021 was a tragic loss to his family, friends, and the philosophical community. His writings, lectures, and teaching greatly shaped multiple generations of philosophers interested in race and racism, Africana philosophy, social and political philosophy, and ethics. At the Spindel Conference on New Social Ontologies of Race, a memorial session was held in memory of Mills, led by Chike Jeffers, who Mills designated as his literary executor. We are therefore pleased to contribute to the Spindel Conference Proceedings of The Southern Journal of Philosophy a previously unpublished work by Mills

The paper engages Christopher Boorse’s Bio-Statistical Theory (BST). In its current form, BST runs into a significant challenge. For BST to account for its central tenet—that lower-level part-dysfunction is sufficient for higher-level pathology—it must provide criteria for how to decide which lower-level parts are the ones to be analyzed for health or pathology. As BST is a naturalistic theory, such choices must be based solely on naturalistic considerations. An argument is provided to show that, if BST is to be preserved, such parthood choices are based on non-naturalistic considerations. We demonstrate that even when parthood choices are based on the best way to preserve BST, there are counterintuitive results which bring the central tenet of BST into question.