Costanza Coloni

I am a PhD candidate in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge (Supervisor: Prof. Hasok Chang). Previously, I completed a Bachelor's and Master's degree from the University of Bologna and spent two periods abroad at LMU Munich and Bielefeld University.

My research, which will be co-funded by the AHRC DTP and Newnham College, will focus on the concept of truth-likeness in science. More specifically, my hypothesis is that contemporary scientific realism, which contends that scientific theories are true or at least approximately true, has incorporated some anti-realist theses concerning the situatedness of scientific research that may be useful to better characterize the concept of truth-likeness. Whereas traditional analyses of truth-likeness are formal, my thesis aims to propose a qualitative account of truth-likeness, seen as the result of the interplay between truth and science’s situatedness (e.g., the fact that science is situated in a historical context or influenced by non-epistemic values). Finally, I will investigate how the concept of truth-likeness can be employed as a tool to counter skepticism about science.