Gabriele Contessa

Social Epistemology; Philosophy of Science; Philosophy of Economics; Political Philosophy

• Laurea (Universita’ di Roma “La Sapienza”), M.Sc. (LSE), Ph.D. ( LSE)
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Associate Professor

Office Hours

(virtually) Monday, 10:35–11:25 AM, or by appointment

Courses for Winter 2026

• PHIL 2901: Truth and Propaganda
• PHIL 4007/5500: Misinformation

Research Interests

• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Economics
• Social Epistemology
• Political Philosophy

Publications:

Books

• Science Denial: Post-Truth or Post-Trust? Cambridge University Press. 2025.Over the past couple of decades, there has been growing concern about the alleged rise of various forms of science denial. But what exactly is science denial? How does it differ from ordinary scientific ignorance? Is it really on the rise? If so, what explain this trend? And what is so concerning about it in the first place? This Element has four goals. Its first (and least ambitious) goal is to i…Read more

Published articles

• The Science Contract: Scientific Inquiry, Public Trust in Science, and the Division of Zetetic Labor. In Aaron B. Creller & Jonathan Matheson (eds.), Inquiry: Philosophical Perspectives, Routledge. 2025.What can we, as a society, legitimately expect from science? And what, if anything, can science legitimately expect from society? This paper argues that the relationship between science and society is governed by a science contract. I first introduce the notion of an expertise contract—a social contract that governs the relationship between experts and non-experts, bestows on experts certain fiduc…Read more
• It Takes a Village to Trust Science: Towards a (Thoroughly) Social Approach to Public Trust in Science. Erkenntnis 88 (7): 2941-2966. 2023.In this paper, I distinguish three general approaches to public trust in science, which I call the individual approach, the semi-social approach, and the social approach, and critically examine their proposed solutions to what I call the problem of harmful distrust. I argue that, despite their differences, the individual and the semi-social approaches see the solution to the problem of harmful dis…Read more
• Shopping for experts. Synthese 200 (3): 1-21. 2022.This paper explores the socio-epistemic practice of shopping for experts. I argue that expert shopping is particularly likely to occur on what Thi Nguyen calls cognitive islands. To support my argument, I focus on macroeconomics. First, I make a prima-facie case for thinking that macroeconomics is a cognitive island. Then, I argue that ordinary people are particularly likely to engage in expert sh…Read more
• A Minimalist Theory of Appropriation. The Journal of Ethics 26 (2): 319-335. 2022.This paper offers a conditional defence of a minimalist theory of appropriation. The conclusion of its main argument is that, if people do enjoy a natural right to appropriate unappropriated resources, then that right is best understood as a derivative right that stems from a more fundamental natural right to self-preservation. If this conclusion is correct, then insofar as people have a natural r…Read more
• The Robot Apocalypse is Already Here (But the Robots Are Not What You Think). The Philosophers’ Magazine 96 54-58. 2021.This essay argues that modern business corporations are robots that are taking over the world in their single-minded pursuit of their own goals.
• On the mitigation of inductive risk. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3): 1-14. 2021.The last couple of decades have witnessed a renewed interest in the notion of inductive risk among philosophers of science. However, while it is possible to find a number of suggestions about the mitigation of inductive risk in the literature, so far these suggestions have been mostly relegated to vague marginal remarks. This paper aims to lay the groundwork for a more systematic discussion of the…Read more
• Inductive risk in macroeconomics: Natural Rate Theory, monetary policy, and the Great Canadian Slump. Economics and Philosophy 37 (3): 353-375. 2021.This paper has two goals. The first is to fill a gap in the literature on inductive risk by exploring the relevance of the notion of inductive risk to macroeconomics and monetary policy. The second goal is to draw some general lessons about inductive risk from the case discussed. The most important of these lessons is that the notion of inductive risk is no less relevant to the relationship betwee…Read more
• Powerful Qualities or Pure Powers? Metaphysica 20 (1): 5-33. 2019.This paper explores the debate between those philosophers who take (fundamental, perfectly natural) properties to be pure powers and those who take them to be powerful qualities. I first consider two challenges for the view that properties are powerful qualities, which I call, respectively, ‘the clarification challenge’ and ‘the explanatory challenge’. I then examine a number of arguments that aim…Read more
• Dispositions and Tricks. Erkenntnis 81 (3): 587-596. 2016.According to the Simple Conditional Analysis of disposition ascriptions, disposition ascriptions are to be analyzed in terms of counterfactual conditionals. The Simple Conditional Analysis is notoriously vulnerable to counterexamples. In this paper, I introduce a new sort of counterexample to the Simple Conditional Analysis of disposition ascriptions, which I call ‘tricks’. I then explore a number…Read more
• It Ain’t Easy: Fictionalism, Deflationism, and Easy Arguments in Ontology. Mind 125 (499): 763-773. 2016.Fictionalism and deflationism are two moderate meta-ontological positions that try to occupy a middle ground between the extremes of heavy-duty realism and hard-line eliminativism. Deflationists believe that the existence of certain entities (e.g.: numbers) can be established by means of ‘easy’ arguments—arguments that, supposedly, rely solely on uncontroversial premises and trivial inferences. Fi…Read more
• Only Powers Can Confer Dispositions. Philosophical Quarterly 65 (259): 160-176. 2015.According to power theorists, properties are powers—i.e. they necessarily confer on their bearers certain dispositions. Although the power theory is increasingly gaining popularity, a vast majority of analytic metaphysicians still favors what I call ‘the nomic theory’—i.e. the view according to which what dispositions a property confers on its bearers is contingent on what the laws of nature happe…Read more
• One’s a Crowd: Mereological Nihilism without Ordinary‐Object Eliminativism. Analytic Philosophy 55 (2): 199-221. 2014.Mereological nihilism is the thesis that there are no composite objects—i.e. objects with proper material parts. One of the main advantages of mereological nihilism is that it allows its supporters to avoid a number of notorious philosophical puzzles. However, it seems to offer this advantage only at the expense of certain widespread and deeply entrenched beliefs. In particular, it is usually assu…Read more
• Does Your Metaphysics Need Structure? Analysis 73 (4): 715-721. 2013.This paper is part of a book symposium on Theodore Sider’s Writing the Book of the World.
• Dispositions and Interferences. Philosophical Studies 165 (2): 401-419. 2013.The Simple Counterfactual Analysis (SCA) was once considered the most promising analysis of disposition ascriptions. According to SCA, disposition ascriptions are to be analyzed in terms of counterfactual conditionals. In the last few decades, however, SCA has become the target of a battery of counterexamples. In all counterexamples, something seems to be interfering with a certain object’s having…Read more
• Sweet Nothings. Analysis 72 (2): 354-366. 2012.This paper is part of a book symposium on Jody Azzouni’s Talking about Nothing: Numbers, Hallucinations, and Fictions
• The junk argument: safe disposal guidelines for mereological universalists. Analysis 72 (3): 455-457. 2012.
• Scientific Models and Representation. In Steven French & Juha Saatsi (eds.), Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Continuum. pp. 120–137. 2011.My two daughters would love to go tobogganing down the hill by themselves, but they are just toddlers and I am an apprehensive parent, so, before letting them do so, I want to ensure that the toboggan won’t go too fast. But how fast will it go? One way to try to answer this question would be to tackle the problem head on. Since my daughters and their toboggan are initially at rest, according to cl…Read more
• Do Extrinsic Dispositions Need Extrinsic Causal Bases? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (3): 622-638. 2011.In this paper, I distinguish two often-conflated theses—the thesis that all dispositions are intrinsic properties and the thesis that the causal bases of all dispositions are intrinsic properties—and argue that the falsity of the former does not entail the falsity of the latter. In particular, I argue that extrinsic dispositions are a counterexample to first thesis but not necessarily to the secon…Read more
• Keeping Track of Neurath’s Bill: Abstract Concepts, Stock Models, and the Unity of Classical Physics. In Olga Pombo (ed.), The Unity of Science: Essays in Honour of Otto Neurath, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2011. With Sheldon Steed and Nancy Cartwright.
• Scientific models and fictional objects. Synthese 172 (2): 215-229. 2010.In this paper, I distinguish scientific models in three kinds on the basis of their ontological status—material models, mathematical models and fictional models, and develop and defend an account of fictional models as fictional objects—i.e. abstract objects that stand for possible concrete objects.
• Modal truthmakers and two varieties of actualism. Synthese 174 (3): 341-353. 2010.In this paper, I distinguish between two varieties of actualism—hardcore actualism and softcore actualism—and I critically discuss Ross Cameron’s recent arguments for preferring a softcore actualist account of the truthmakers for modal truths over hardcore actualist ones. In the process, I offer some arguments for preferring the hardcore actualist account of modal truthmakers over the softcore act…Read more
• Introduction. Synthese 172 (2): 193-195. 2010.In this paper, I distinguish scientific models in three kinds on the basis of their ontological status—material models, mathematical models and fictional models, and develop and defend an account of fictional models as fictional objects—i.e. abstract objects that stand for possible concrete objects.
• Empiricist structuralism, metaphysical realism, and the bridging problem. Analysis 70 (3): 514-524. 2010.This paper is part of a book symposium on Bas van Fraassen’s Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective (OUP, 2010)
• Introduction. Synthese 172 (2). 2009.
• Who is afraid of imaginary objects? In Nicholas Griffin & Dale Jacquette (eds.), Russell vs. Meinong: The Legacy of “On Denoting”, Routledge. 2008.People often use expressions such as ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Pegasus’ that appear to refer to imaginary objects. In this paper, I consider the main attempts to account for apparent reference to imaginary objects available in the literature and argue that all fall short of being fully satisfactory. In particular, I consider the problems of two main options to maintain that imaginary objects are real…Read more
• A Note on the Nomic Possibility of a Dynamic Shift. Erkenntnis 68 (2): 187-190. 2008.In this note, I argue that a dynamically shifted world—i.e. a world identical to our own except for a fixed constant difference in the absolute acceleration of each object—is nomically impossible in a Newtonian world populated by finitely many objects. A dynamic shift however seems to be nomically possible in a world populated by infinitely many objects, but only in a broad sense of nomic possibil…Read more
• There are Kinds and Kinds of Kinds: Ben-Yami on the Semantics of Kind Terms. Philosophical Studies 136 (2): 217-248. 2007.Hanoch Ben-Yami has argued that the theory of the semantics of natural kind terms proposed by Kripke and Putnam is false and has proposed an allegedly novel account of the semantics of kind terms. In this article, I critically examine Ben-Yami’s arguments. I will argue that Ben-Yami’s objections do not show that Kripke and Putnam’s theory is false, but at most that the specific versions of it held…Read more
• Scientific representation, interpretation, and surrogative reasoning. Philosophy of Science 74 (1): 48-68. 2007.In this paper, I develop Mauricio Suárez’s distinction between denotation, epistemic representation, and faithful epistemic representation. I then outline an interpretational account of epistemic representation, according to which a vehicle represents a target for a certain user if and only if the user adopts an interpretation of the vehicle in terms of the target, which would allow them to perfor…Read more
• On the Supposed Temporal Asymmetry of Counterfactual Dependence; or: It Wouldn’t Have Taken a Miracle! Dialectica 60 (4). 2006.The thesis that a temporal asymmetry of counterfactual dependence characterizes our world plays a central role in Lewis’s philosophy, as. among other things, it underpins one of Lewis most renowned theses—that causation can be analyzed in terms of counterfactual dependence. To maintain that a temporal asymmetry of counterfactual dependence characterizes our world, Lewis committed himself to two ot…Read more
• Constructive empiricism, observability and three kinds of ontological commitment. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (3): 454-468. 2006.In this paper, I argue that, contrary to the constructive empiricist’s position, observability is not an adequate criterion as a guide to ontological commitment in science. My argument has two parts. First, I argue that the constructive empiricist’s choice of observability as a criterion for ontological commitment is based on the assumption that belief in the existence of unobservable entities is …Read more

Book reviews

• Review of Stephanie Kelton’s The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy (New York, Public Affairs, 2020). Economics and Philosophy 38 (2): 315-320. 2022.
• The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. W.W. Norton, 2019, xvi + 232 pp., $27.95 (hbk), ISBN: 9781324002727. Economics and Philosophy 37 (3): 489-494. 2021.
• Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality, by Barbara Vetter. Mind 125 (500): 1236-1244. 2016.
• Review of Bas C. Van Fraassen, Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (3). 2009.
• Scientific models, partial structures and the new received view of theories. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (2): 370-377. 2006.

In progress / unpublished

• Models and Maps: An Essay on Epistemic Representation.This book defends a two-tiered account of epistemic representation–the sort of representation relation that holds between representations such as maps and scientific models and their targets. It defends a interpretational account of epistemic representation and a structural similarity account of overall faithful epistemic representation.

Dissertation

Representing Reality: The Ontology of Scientific Models and Their Representational Function. Dissertation, University of London. 2007.Today most philosophers of science believe that models play a central role in science and that one of the main functions of scientific models is to represent systems in the world. Despite much talk of models and representation, however, it is not yet clear what representation in this context amounts to nor what conditions a certain model needs to meet in order to be a representation of a certain s…Read more