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Born in New Castle, PA
“Nancy Cartwright’s philosophy of science is, in her view, a form of empiricism. Her concerns were not with the problems of skepticism, induction, or demarcation; she is concerned with how actual science achieves the successes it does, and what sort of metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions are needed to understand that success” (Durham). -
Received her BA degree from University of Pittsburg in Mathematics
“Her research interests include philosophy and history of science (especially physics and economics). Cartwright has worked extensively in modeling, causal inference, causal powers, and objectivity, evidence, especially for evidence-based policy [EBP] and the philosophy of social technology. She has worked with others on projects in this area on education, child protection and international development (Durham). -
Offered and accepted a Postdoctoral Fellow, U.S. National Science Foundation, Cambridge University
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Received her PhD from University of Illinois in Philosophy
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Offered and accepted a Postdoctoral Fellow, U.S. National Science Foundation, Cambridge University
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Offered and accepted a Fellow, Philosophy of Science Center, University of Pittsburgh
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Offered and accepted a Fellow, ZiF (Center for Interdisciplinary Research), Bielefeld, Germany
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Wrote "How the Laws of Physics Lie", Oxford University Press (August 1983)
In this book, her “challenge to fundamentalism, including her analysis of the nature and significance of models, began with her book, where she argues that science does not describe the world via the establishment of theoretical laws that correctly represent the features of the world” (Bloomsbury). For example, a scarecrow could be a simulacrum of a human. For a closer look at this book click -
Married British Philosopher, Sir Stuart Hampshire
"They met at Stanford. His time working as British Intelligence in WW2, he interrogated Nazi officers and encountered their insights into reality and nature of evil. He was horrified by the ease they were able to induce torture and murder and these experiences shaped his thinking in ethics, philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mind. He wrote ‘Morality and Conflict, Justice and Conflict, and ‘Two theories of Morality’ as well as ‘Spinoza’ that he was known for”(Stanford). -
Offered and accepted a Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study), Berlin
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Wrote "Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement"
She insisted that “Science isn’t merely just a product or description, but more of a process of problem solving and experimentation where a problem has to be solved, testing of these models is a way of solving them (Bloomsbury). She believed in “models being the heuristic function of them being exploratory and a place where we can focus our questions for future research, they also regulate regardless of function, with respect to scientific models” (Bloomsbury). -
Offered and accepted a Fellow, MacArthur Foundation
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Offered and accepted a Fellow, British Academy
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Offered and accepted an Old Dominion Fellow, Philosophy, Princeton University
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Member, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (The German National Academy of Natural Science)
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Wrote "The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science"
The challenge to what she “calls fundamentalism is not, a challenge or rejection of realism, the view that there is a world independent of our theories or models of understandings, rather a challenge to a particular form of realism, a description of the world” in her later works: ‘Natures capacities and their measurement’, and this book"(Bloomsbury). click here -
Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Science
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Associate Member, Nuffield College, Oxford
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Offered and accepted a Fellow, American Philosophical Society
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Senior Visiting Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Bologna
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Accepted a Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Durham University
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Titular Member, Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences (A.I.P.S)
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Vice-President, American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division)
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Wrote "Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics"
Cambridge University Press.
Book link -
President, American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division)
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President, Philosophy of Science Association
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Awarded Chancellor’s Associates Faculty Excellence Award for Excellence in Research in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of California at San Diego
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Member, Doctorate School in Philosophy of the Universita 'Ca' Foscari', Venice
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Awarded 225 Medallion, Distinguished Alumna, University of Pittsburgh
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Earned Honorary Degree. Doctor of Humane Letters, honors causa, Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX
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Wrote "Evidence Based Policy: A Practical Guide to Doing It Better", with Jeremy Hardie
Book link To watch her discussion on Evident Based Policy click here -
Honorary Degree, Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, University of St Andrews
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Tsing Hua Honorary Distinguished Chair Professor, awarded by the National Tsing Hua University
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Wrote "Philosophy of Social Science: a new introduction", with Eleonora Montuschi
Take a look at the book here -
Lectured at John Dewey Lecture: 2015 Pacific Division APA meeting
Each Dewey Lecturer receives a monetary award in addition to the honor of being selected. Beginning with the 2015–2016 lectures, each Dewey Lecturer will receive a prize of $1,000. -
Associate Member, Senior Common Room at Wadham College, Oxford
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Fellow, The Academy of Social Sciences:
Eighty-four leading social scientists conferred as Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences. -
Lectured at Carus Lectures (APA 2017 Pacific Division Meeting), Seattle
Nancy Cartwright, Nature, the Artful Modeller: She Reads the New Yorker, Trusts in God, and Takes Short Views (Pacific). This award, The Carus Lecturer is selected by the APA committee on lectures, publications, and research (LPR). The LPR chair solicits five nominations from each member of the APA board of officers. Nominees must be members of the APA. The award is monetary and they only choose a Lecturer every three years. -
Senior Research Associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (ACEPS), University of Johannesburg
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The Martin R. Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement awarded by the Phi Beta Kappa Society (alongside Elliott Sober)
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Lectured at Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) Distinguished Lecture Series at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Headquarters
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Lectured at The Wesley C. Salmon Memorial Lecture, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
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Wrote "Nature, the Artful Modeler: Lectures on Laws, Science, How Nature Arranges the World and How We Can Arrange It Better "
You can find more information about the book here
