About
I am a Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Sheffield. My current project is on the interpretation and communication of medical images on the part of different experts and laypeople.
I am interested in the philosophical issues arising from the use of representations (pictures and models, but also experimental specimens and thought experiments) in the practice of science, and their interpretation on the part of experts. My interests expand to relevant areas of philosophy of language (particularly theories of reference), epistemology (traditional and social, especially for what concerns values and bias in science), and philosophy of art (specifically theories of depiction). I also like to explore topics in philosophy of biology and medicine, with particular fascination for the philosophy of psychiatry.
ARTICLES
(forthcoming). AI, Experts, and Epistemic Authority. Philosophy of Science. Coauthored with Mason Majszak. Link to preprint here.
(2026b). Smugglers of reference: Expressivist-inferentialism and the inevitability of model denotation. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. pp. 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1086/742351.
[Also available open access here.]
(2026a). Representation and Artefactualism: Towards a synergic understanding of scientific modelling. Synthese, 207(112), pp. 1-38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-026-05490-4 (open access).
(2025). Why we love pictures (for the wrong reasons): A lesson from the picture of a black hole. Philosophy of Science, 92(5), pp. 1338-1349.doi.org/10.1017/psa.2025.10148.
[A longer version (with more pictures!) is available open access here.]
(2023b). Putting the ‘experiment’ back into the ‘thought experiment’. Synthese, 201(34), pp. 1-36. doi.org/10.1007/s112 29-022-04011-3 (open access).
(2023a). Model organisms as scientific representations. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, pp. 1-26. doi.org/1 0.1086/728259.
[A developed version is available open access here].
Works in progress
- A paper under review on the use of machine learning models in social scientific research
- A paper under review on aesthetic considerations in science
- I also have a small paper with some rambling about my personal crisis as a philosopher of science… let me know what you think about it!
Organisation of Conferences
(09/2026) Conference “Interpreting Medical Images (IMI):
Epistemological, methodological, and hermeneutical perspectives on visual representations in the medical sciences” at the University of Sheffield. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
Selected TALKS
(12/2025) “Why we love pictures (for the wrong reasons): A lesson from the picture of a black hole” (online). Invited speaker at the Foundations Seminar of the Black Hole Initiative (BHI) – Harvard University (USA)
See it on YouTube
(08/2025) “Artefactualism and representation: Towards a synergic understanding of models”. EPSA 2025, Groningen (NL)
(07/2025) “Expanding the representational framework: Animal models from a representational perspective”. ISHPSSB 2025, Porto (PT)
(11/2024) “Why we love pictures (for the wrong reasons): A lesson from the picture of a black hole”. PSA 2024, New Orleans (USA).
(09/2024) “The internal and external validity of scientific thought experiments”. Invited speaker at the Luxembourg Thought Experiments and Knowledge Workshop, Institute of Philosophy, DHUM – University of Luxembourg (LU).
Teaching
At the LSE, I was a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA). GTAs are responsible for seminar-wise, small-group classes of undergraduate students (including marking, feedback, and office hour). As a GTA, I taught in the following courses:
(2023/24) PH227 Genes, Brains and Society (phil. of biology, medicine and psychiatry).
(2022/23) PH333 Philosophy of Gender and Race.
(2021/22) PH203 Philosophy of the Social Sciences.
(2020/21) PH103 The Big Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy.
I have also designed four lectures for graduate students, three at the University of Bologna (2019, 2021, 2023) and one at the LSE (2024).
brief academic BIo
I obtained my PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2024. Previously, I studied philosophy at the University of Trento (2012/15) and the University of Bologna (2015/18), with study exchanges at the University of Vienna (6 months) and Columbia University in New York (3 months). I then completed a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science at the LSE (2018/19). My first postdoc was at the IMT Lucca (2024/25), with academic visits at the IVC in Vienna (3 months) and the Model Transfer group at the Leibniz Universität Hannover (1 month).
Selected Awards
- (08/2024) Popper Memorial Prize for the paper “Model organisms as scientific representations”
- (07/2023) John Watkins Memorial Prize for the paper “Putting the ‘experiment’ back into the ‘thought experiment’”
- (04/2023) Highly commended for LSE class teacher award
- (2020/24) LAHP full doctoral studentship
- (12/2019) MSc Popper Prize for best performance on the MSc Philosophy of Science at the LSE
- (2015/18) University of Bologna “Collegio Superiore” merit studentship and school of excellence diploma
- (07/2016) University of Trento merit award and school of excellence diploma
Philosophy Exchange
I am one of the founders and sit on the organising committee of Philosophy Exchange. We organised two graduate conferences (ed. 2021 and 2022) and a philosophical podcast.
Philosophy for Children
In the Autumn 2022, I completed the training to become an Accredited Specialist Philosophy Teacher at the Philosophy Foundation.
Contacts and webpages:
Google Scholar – CV – ORCID – LinkedIn – Institutional website
L[dot]sartori[at]sheffield.ac.uk
Lorenzo Sartori 