Nancy Cartwright

Who is Nancy Cartwright?

Nancy Cartwright FBA is a professor of philosophy at the University of California at San Diego and, as of 2012, at the University of Durham, and a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Cartwright served as the president of the Philosophy of Science Association and as vice-president and president of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association. She is Fellow of the British Academy and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Cartwright earned her BSc from the University of Pittsburgh in mathematics in 1966 and her Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago under the direction of Brian Skyrms. Her thesis, completed in 1971, was on the concept of mixture in quantum mechanics. Before taking her current appointments, she taught at the University of Maryland, Stanford University and the London School of Economics. 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 Patrick Suppes, John Dupré, Peter Galison and Ian Hacking. Cartwright has mentored several students in England and the United States who have gone on to become professional philosophers of science, including Naomi Oreskes, Carl Hoefer, Mauricio Suarez, Andrew Hamilton, Julian Reiss, Roman Frigg, Gabriele Contessa, Anna Alexandrova, and Jacob Stegenga. She was also a supervisor of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.