It is a well-known result of Auslander and Reiten that contravariant finiteness of the class P∞fin (of finitely generated modules of finite projective dimension) over an Artin algebra is a sufficient condition for validity of finitistic dimension conjectures. Motivated by the fact that finitistic dimensions of an algebra can alternatively be computed by Gorenstein projective dimension, in this work we examine the Gorenstein counterpart of Auslander--Reiten condition, namely contravariant finiteness of the class GP∞fin
Nearby in the stack
(of finitely generated modules of finite Gorenstein projective dimension), and its relation to validity of finitistic dimension conjectures. It is proved that contravariant finiteness of the class
GP∞fin
implies validity of the second finitistic dimension conjecture over left artinian rings. In the more special setting of Artin algebras, however, it is proved that the Auslander--Reiten sufficient condition and its Gorenstein counterpart are virtually equivalent in the sense that contravariant finiteness of the class
GP∞fin
implies contravariant finiteness of the class
P∞fin
over any Artin algebra, and the converse holds for Artin algebras over which the class
GP0fin
(of finitely generated Gorenstein projective modules) is contravariantly finite.