Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science

Edited by Luc Bovens, Carl Hoefer, Stephan Hartmann

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• ISBN: 978-0-415-38600-5
• Binding: Hardback
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 28th May 2008
• Pages: 418

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About the Book

Nancy Cartwright is one of the most distinguished and influential contemporary philosophers of science. Despite the profound impact of her work, there is neither a systematic exposition of Cartwright’s philosophy of science nor a collection of articles that contains in-depth discussions of the major themes of her philosophy.

This book is devoted to a critical assessment of Cartwright’s philosophy of science and contains contributions from Cartwright's champions and critics. Broken into three parts, the book begins by addressing Cartwright's views on the practice of model building in science and the question of how models represent the world before moving on to a detailed discussion of methodologically and metaphysically challenging problems. Finally, the book addresses Cartwright's original attempts to clarify profound questions concerning the metaphysics of science.

With contributions from leading scholars, such as Ronald N. Giere and Paul Teller, this unique volume will be extremely useful to philosophers of science the world over.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1 Hoefer: Introducing Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science

Part I. Models and Representations

2 Bailer-Jones, D. Standing up Against Tradition: Models and Theories in Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science

Replies by Cartwright

1. Gäehde, U. Nancy Cartwright on Theories, Models and Their Application to Reality: A Case Study

Replies by Cartwright

2. Morrison, M. Models as Representational Structures

Replies by Cartwright

3. Teller, P. The Finewright Theory

Replies by Cartwright

Part II. Causes and Capacities

4. Giere, R. Models, Metaphysics and Methodology

Replies by Cartwright

5. Suarez, M. Experimental Realism Defended: How Inference to the Most Likely Cause Might Be Sound

Replies by Cartwright

6. Psillos, S. Cartwright’s Realist Toil: From Entities to Capacities

Replies by Cartwright

7. Woodward, J. Invariance, Modularity, And All That: Cartwright on Causation

Replies by Cartwright

8. Martel, I. The Principle of the Common Cause, The Causal Markov Condition, and Quantum Mechanics: Comments on Cartwright

Replies by Cartwright

9. Reiss, J. Social Capacities

Replies by Cartwright

10. Schmidt-Petri, C. Cartwright and Mill on Tendencies and Capacities

Replies by Cartwright

Part III. Antifundamentalism and the Disunity of Science

11. Hoefer, C. For Fundamentalism

Replies by Cartwright

12. Esfeld, M. Cartwright on Wholism

Replies by Cartwright

13. Falkenburg, B. How Classical and Quantum States Relate: Cartwright’s Views of Quantum Theory

Replies by Cartwright

14. Nordmann, A. Getting the Causal Story Right: Hermeneutic Moments in Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science

Replies by Cartwright

Notes on Contributors

Index

About the Author(s)

Stephan Hartmann is Chair in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science in the Department of Philosophy at Tilburg University and Director of the Tilburg Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science.

Luc Bovens is Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics.

Carl Hoefer is an ICREA Research Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona

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