About
Dr Alessandra Basso is a philosopher of science with a focus on economics and the social sciences. Her research explores ways in which philosophy can engage meaningfully with the challenges faced by social scientists.
For example, she reflects on the epistemic and moral problems researchers face when studying concepts that are ethically and politically charged, such as poverty, well-being, and inequality. Drawing on examples from cutting-edge social research, she investigates how values and scientific reasoning interact in shaping knowledge, using philosophical tools to better understand, and sometimes reframe, the problems researchers encounter.
A central focus of her current research is the study of economic inequality. She is interested in how scientific work on inequality can be both value-laden and sufficiently objective to inform decision-making. In a forthcoming article in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, she examines the accuracy conditions of inequality measurement and uses them to assess current scientific practices. She argues that efforts to improve the comparability of inequality data across countries can come at the cost of reduced accuracy, and she explores strategies to mitigate this trade-off.
In a separate collaboration with Prof. Alexandrova (University of Cambridge), they examine the epistemic, ethical, pragmatic, and metrological considerations that guide researchers in the development of inequality indicators. They reveal tensions among these drivers and argue that constructing a good measure requires balancing competing demands, recognising that it may be impossible to satisfy all of them at once (forthcoming in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science).
Research Interests
- Epistemological foundations of measurement in economics and the social sciences
- Development and evaluation of inequality indicators
- The functions of models in social scientific measurement
- Modelling practices in economics and the social sciences.
- The role of values in knowledge production
- Causal and moral narratives in the justification of inequality-related policies
- Varieties and roles of experimentation in the social sciences