Nancy Cartwright (philosopher)

All you want to know about Nancy Cartwright (philosopher)

Nancy Cartwright (philosopher)
Western Philosophy Contemporary philosophy

Full name	Nancy Cartwright
Birth	1943
School/tradition	Analytic philosophy
Main interests	Philosophy of science, Philosophy of physics
Influenced by Brian Skyrms

Note: Not to be confused with Nancy Cartwright (actress)

Nancy Cartwright (born 1943) is a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics and the University of California at San Diego, and a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Cartwright is the president-elect of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association.

Her PhD in philosophy was earned at the University of Illinois at Chicago under the direction of Brian Skyrms. She previously taught at Stanford University and was married to the philosopher Stuart Hampshire, now deceased. She was also previously married to Ian Hacking. Her research interests include the history and philosophy of science, especially economics and physics, and causal inference and objectivity in science. She has also written on the history of logical positivism. Her approach to the philosophy of science is associated with the so-called "Stanford school" of John Dupré, Peter Galison, and Ian Hacking.

Scientific Laws

Nancy Cartwright puts forth the argument that the idealized laws of physics are strictly false, and that the true description of any real physical system will not include generalized laws. Rather, she believes that extremely specialized laws are needed to fully describe the universe, if it is indeed possible to describe it through laws at all.

For example, Isaac Newton's famous law of gravitation is $F = G \frac{mm'}{r^2}$ which is an ideal law relating the force exerted by two masses at a distance.^{[citation needed]} This is a ceteris paribus law; the law can only be true under idealized circumstances.^{[citation needed]} Cartwright says that this poses a problem, since there will never be an ideal situation where the only force acting on two masses is their mutual gravitational attraction. Idealized laws can, however, be used in models, which Cartwright believes to play a crucial role in scientific explanation.

Bibliography

How the Laws of Physics Lie, Oxford University Press (August 1983) ISBN 0-19-824704-4
Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement, Oxford University Press (October 1989) ISBN 0-198-24477-0
The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science, Cambridge University Press (September 1999) ISBN 0-521-64411-9
Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics, Cambridge University Press (June 2007) ISBN 0-521-86081-4