The Vertical and Horizontal Dimensions of the Word Race

Abstract

The word race has been used both to classify humans and to account for differences between those assigned to the resulting classes or taxa. The two dimensions (horizontal and vertical) are inherent in the conception of race. Initially, the word was used in ways that gave more expression to the sense of descent embodied in the vertical dimension. Since the early 19th century, the word has been used in ways that express the sense of classification reflected in the horizontal dimension. Some histories of thought about human origins and divisions have assumed, wrongly, that a ‘scientific concept of race’ was at some time established within anthropology.