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Area of FocusAbout Nancy's Work
Nancy Cartwright focuses her study on a largely underdeveloped area: the use of science to effect change.
In her book, How the Laws of Physics Lie (1983), Cartwright challenges current trends in philosophical thought, rejecting the assumption that science is concerned with the articulation of natural laws. Her alternative theory designates the scientific project as one in which causal capacities are discovered and quantified. She is the author of Nature’s Capacities and Their Measurement (1989) and The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science (1999). She is the co-author of Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics (1996), in which she explores a philosophical position that, like her own, aims to use the sciences to effect change in the world.
Biography
Since 1991, Cartwright has been a professor of philosophy at the University of London’s School of Economics and Political Science, where she also heads the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. She taught previously at Stanford University (1973-91) and at the University of Maryland (1972-73).
Cartwright received a B.S. (1966) from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Ph.D. (1971) from the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle.
Last updated January 1, 2005
Published on July 1, 1993
