About

Nancy Cartwright is a Professor of Philosophy at Durham University and a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Her academic career began at Stanford University, where she specialized in the philosophy of the natural sciences, particularly physics. In her later career, she has focused on the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences, with a special emphasis on economics. Her current research concentrates on issues of objectivity and evidence, especially in relation to evidence-based policy. She has been recognized for her contributions to the field with the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Humanities, awarded for her use of philosophy to strengthen scientific rationality and ground effective, evidence-based public policies. Throughout her career, she has engaged in work on philosophy of science in practice, philosophy of physics, philosophy of social sciences, causal inference, and knowledge for use. She is also involved in various upcoming lectures and projects, including her role as the Centenary Visiting Professor in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford for the 2025–26 academic year.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Epistemology
• Philosophy
• Mathematics
• Quantum mechanics
• Positive economics
• Physics
• Social Science
• Law
• Environmental science
• History
• Mechanical engineering
• Pure mathematics
• Thermodynamics
• Psychology
• Economics
• Meteorology
• Geography
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Middle-Sized Theories

  Topoi · 2026-04-12

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper argues in defense of middle-sized (or ‘middle-level’) scientific theories and middle-sized principles. Our arguments derive from consideration of successful scientific practice. Focusing on middle-sized theories of change and the middle-sized principles they engage, we set out two case studies from differing areas of application: (1) the development of new technology – masers and lasers in particular; and (2) policy design in social domains, such as welfare, education and health, using a sugar sweetened beverage tax as illustration. We show the central use of middle-sized theories of change and middle-sized principles in these two areas and contend that this illustrates their vital role more generally.

  PublisherDOI

• Research and Activism: Ruth First and Activist Research

  2025-05-08 · 2 citations

  bookOpen access

  A book that interrogates, celebrates, performs and opens up a projective scholarship on Ruth First’s extraordinary body of knowledge that also recuperates, recovers and rediscovers her. This book convincingly argues for forging activist research that speaks to contemporary challenges and builds on First’s rich legacy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How We Relate Theory to Observation

  University of Pittsburgh Press eBooks · 2024-02-20 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Disagreement about Evidence-Based Policy

  2024-11-13 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Evidence-based policy (EBP) is a popular research paradigm in the applied social sciences and within government agencies. Informally, EBP represents an explicit commitment to applying scientific methods to public affairs, in contrast to ideologically driven or merely intuitive ‘common-sense’ approaches to public policy. More specifically, the EBP paradigm places great weight on the results of experimental research designs, especially randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and systematic literature reviews that place evidential weight on experimental results. One hope is that such research designs and approaches to analyzing the scientific literature are sufficiently robust that they can settle what really ‘works’ in public policy. Can EBP succeed in displacing reliance on domain-specific expertise? On our account, this is seldom, if ever, the case. The key reason for this is that underlying this approach is generally an appeal to argument by induction, which always requires further assumptions to underwrite its validity, and if not induction, some other argument form that also requires assumptions that are very often not validated for the case at hand.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evidence, Relevance and Warrant: In Defence of Voluntarism

  2024-05-06

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Bas van Fraassen endorses a voluntarist epistemology. I do too, influenced by him and by Otto Neurath, though I confine my claims to the epistemology of science, where the bulk of my work is located. Here I present arguments for voluntarism additional to van Fraassen's own, based on accounts of what makes for scientific evidence. I take it that evidence claims for a hypothesis should be true and should genuinely speak for or against the hypothesis. A hypothesis is warranted for us only if we are warranted in taking each of these to be the case. Both, I argue, lead to voluntarism via the familiar route pointed to in Neurath's famous boat metaphor. There is no end to the warranting game. Warrant is always conditional on a myriad of claims we have already plumped for. The second requirement, relevance, is my chief focus here, since, I argue, warranting an evidence claim is a doddle compared with warranting that it is evidence. If we want evidence then, plumping is ubiquitous.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reliability Trumps Truth

  Filozofia · 2024-12-10

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper argues that reliability is a better desideratum for scientific claims than is truth as soon as we focus on 'helping to change the world (for the better)' as a central aim of science.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A qualitative study exploring experiences of racial minority stressors in pharmacy education and practice

  International Journal of Pharmacy Practice · 2024-04-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Introduction Despite 49.1% of registered pharmacists in the UK identifying Black, Asian, or from a Minority Ethnic (BAME) background, senior management roles within pharmacy are dominated by white males.[1] People from BAME communities may experience racial minority stressors. Racial minority stressors are behaviours which range from unconscious bias, micro-aggression, and overt racism (macro-aggression). However, there is little evidence describing experiences of racial minority stressors in pharmacy practice and education. Aim To explore experiences of racial minority stressors in pharmacy education and practice. Methods A convenience sample of pharmacy students, trainees and pharmacists were recruited via email and social media posts to voluntarily take part in interviews and focus groups. Inclusion criteria were: be over 18 years old, conversant in English, capacity to give consent to take part in research and be either a pharmacy student, trainee or registered pharmacist. The only exclusion criterion was where the inclusion criteria were not met. Interviews and focus groups were held online using Microsoft Teams. A topic guide was generated from key themes in the literature and used during data collection to explore experiences of racial minority stressors in education and practice. Interviews and focus groups were transcribed verbatim and inductively analysed using thematic analysis underpinned by a phenomenological approach. Ethical approval was obtained from Newcastle University Ethics Committee. Results Forty-five participants were recruited. Six focus groups and sixteen one-to-one semi-structured interviews were conducted. The sample was varied, with 56% (n=25) students and 33% (n=15) registered pharmacists from community, hospital, primary care, academia and an additional 11% (n=5) still in foundation training in these sectors. The sample included a diversity of racial identities, including 40% (n=18) South Asian, 27% (n=12) White, 15% (n=7) Black, 7% (n=3) Chinese 7% (n=3) Arab, 2% (n=1) mixed, and 2% (n=1) not disclosed. Three themes were identified – Theme 1) Experiences of racial minority stress, Theme 2) Making sense of racial minority stress, and Theme 3) Responding to racial minority stress. Participants experiences of stressors were based on personal characteristics (for example skin colour, dialect, religious dress) which made them feel susceptible to judgement, racist comments and microaggressions in education and practice. Participants required time to make sense of, interpret, and understand experiences of racial minority stress. This was influenced by the sources of stressors, which included patients, the public, and colleagues as well as institutions and policies. Participants responded by ‘ignoring’ stressors from patients and the public which were thought to be due to ignorance or ill-health and ‘masking’ negative feelings if sources of stress were colleagues or institutions due to fear of negative impacts on training and career progression. Conclusion This study shows dealing with microaggressions, racial minority stress and judgement in pharmacy education and practice is a burden experienced by people from BAME backgrounds. This may contribute to the professional attainment gap in pharmacy, as these experiences are an additional burden that pharmacists, trainees, and students must bear compared to their non-BAME counterparts. Further research is needed to explore interventions to reduce minority stress. References 1. General Pharmaceutical Council. The GPhC register as of 31 May 2022 - Diversity data tables. 2022.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Objectivity and Intellectual Humility in Scientific Research: They’re Harder Than You Think

  European Review · 2023-07-18 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We begin from the assumption that where scientific research will predictably be used to affect things of moral significance in the world, you have a special duty, a duty of care, to ‘get it right’. This, we argue, requires a special kind of objectivity, ‘objectivity to be found’. What is it that’s to be found? In any kind of scientific endeavour, you should make all reasonable efforts to find the right methods to get the right results to serve the purposes at stake and neither exaggerate nor underestimate the credibility of what you have done. That, we take it, is what in this context constitutes objectivity and intellectual humility. But where your results will affect the world, you have a more demanding duty: a duty to ‘get it right’ about the purposes the endeavour should serve. Often the most morally significant purposes are those that ‘go without saying’ and because they are not said, we can too easily overlook them, sometimes at the cost even of human lives. We illustrate this with the example of the Vajont dam design and the flawed modelling that resulted in the Hillsborough football disaster.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Young people’s attitudes to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV Prevention – a qualitative exploratory study

  International Journal of Pharmacy Practice · 2023-11-30

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Introduction Young people aged 18-24 years old are a key demographic target for eliminating human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission globally. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a prevention medication which reduces HIV transmission, is emerging as a key tool to reduce HIV transmission. Despite largely good uptake by gay and bisexual men who have sex with men, hesitancy to use PrEP has been observed in other socio-cultural groups, such as young people, heterosexuals, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and females. Aim The aim of this study was to explore young peoples’ perceptions and attitudes to using PrEP. Methods A convenience sample of young people were recruited from England aged between 18 and 24 using a social media invitation posted by two authors which include details about the study with a registration link. Data was collected using semi-structured one-to-one interviews with graphic elicitation about current experiences of HIV care, awareness of using PrEP and decision making about accessing PrEP. Thematic analysis was used to identify codes and themes to describe participants’ experiences. Institutional ethical approval was obtained. Results Twenty-four young people took part. The sample was 58% female, 100% cisgendered, 54% had or were completing undergraduate study, 58% were straight, 58% had previously had a HIV test, 17% had previously used PrEP and a broad range of ethnicity were included. Key findings found young people had good levels of knowledge about HIV but had a poor understanding of using PrEP. In this information vacuum, negative stigma and stereotypes about HIV were transferred to using PrEP, which were reinforced by information on social media, television, and film - such as an association between using PrEP and being a promiscuous, white, gay males. In addition, young people from ethnic ethnicity communities appeared to have particularly negative attitudes to PrEP use, compared to ethnic majority counterparts. This meant the young people in our study were unable to make decisions about when to access and use PrEP. Discussion/Conclusion The findings indicate an information vacuum for young people regarding PrEP. A strength of the study is that theoretical data saturation was reached. A limitation of the study is that participants were all cisgendered and therefore the experiences of young trans people were not accounted for. Further work is needed to explore what information young people need, when and how this can be delivered to support informed decision-making about using PrEP. Pharmacists have a key role in supporting sexual health and further work should explore community pharmacies readiness to provide this information to young people.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• List of Figures

  2022-12-08

  paratext1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• New Methods for Molding Models to Specific Cases to Enhance Policy Predictions

  NSF · $215k · 2016–2018

Frequent coauthors

• John Dupré

  University of Exeter

  192 shared

• Brian Skyrms

  190 shared

• John D. Norton

  190 shared

• Geoffrey Hellman

  Cambridge University Press

  190 shared

• Michela Massimi

  189 shared

• William Bechtel

  University of California, San Diego

  189 shared

• Julian Reiss

  189 shared

• Marc Lange

  189 shared

Education

• B.A., Philosophy

  Princeton University

  1969

• M.A., Philosophy

  University of California, Berkeley

  1971

• Ph.D., Philosophy

  University of California, Berkeley

  1975

Awards & honors

• BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Humaniti…