6 found
Order:
  1. It Takes a Village to Trust Science: Towards a (Thoroughly) Social Approach to Public Trust in Science.Gabriele Contessa - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (7):2941-2966.
    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 distrust as consisting primarily in trying to persuade individual citizens to trust science and that both approaches face two general (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  2. Shopping for experts.Gabriele Contessa - 2022 - Synthese 200 (3):1-21.
    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 shopping when it comes to macroeconomic matters. In particular, I distinguish between two kinds of expert shopping, which I (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  3. Scientific Models and Representation.Gabriele Contessa - 2011 - In Steven French & Juha Saatsi (eds.), Continuum Companion to the Philosophy of Science. Continuum. pp. 120--137.
    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 classical mechanics, their final velocity will (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  4. On the mitigation of inductive risk.Gabriele Contessa - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (3):1-14.
    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 mitigation of inductive risk. In particular, I consider two approaches to the mitigation of inductive (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  5. A Minimalist Theory of Appropriation.Gabriele Contessa - 2022 - The Journal of Ethics 26 (2):319-335.
    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 right to appropriation, it is much more limited than it is usually assumed, as the minimalist theory places (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. Models and Maps: An Essay on Epistemic Representation.Gabriele Contessa - manuscript
    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.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation