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Beginnings and Education
Every famous philosopher has their beginnings and roots, for we all start somewhere. Renown philosopher Nancy Cartwright was born June 24th, 1944. She earned a bachelor's degree from University of Pittsburgh in mathematics and her Ph.D. in philosophy at University of Illinois at Chicago. She made her intellect known by teaching at many universities, one of them being Stanford University. She also held visiting's at multiple universities as well, some of them being Princeton University and UCLA. -
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The Life of Nancy Cartwright
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Earned Achievements
Cartwright is currently president of the DLMPST/IUHPST (Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology/International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology,) an international non-governmental organization. She has published over eight books, written over five articles, and has co-edited over three publications. She's gotten the Martin R. Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement and the Carl Gustav Hempel Award, in 2017 and 2018, respectively. -
Contributions to Philosophy
Nancy Cartwright as many research interests at the moment, including:
+ The philosophy of social technology
+ History and philosophy of science (especially physics and economics)
+ Causal inference
+ Objectivity in science
+ Evidence/evidence-based policy Here is a short and educational YouTube video of Cartwright in one of her very many lectures:When should we trust or criticize science? | Nancy Cartwright
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Controversial Views of Cartwright
Nancy Cartwright is known for looking beyond what is already widely accepted. She sees that famous theories do not directly represent or portray the actual physical systems in place. The theoretical laws we know today along with everything else in the world is governed by two types of models, interpretive and representative. This being said, she argues that models rather than theories are the units of science that represent parts or aspects of our current world. -
Legacy
Nancy Cartwright had challenged well accepted theory and thought, and is one of the world's most renowned western contemporary philosophers today.