Nancy Cartwright FBA FAcSS is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University and a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). In the first half of her career at Stanford University she specialised in the philosophy of the natural sciences, especially physics; in the second half, at the London School of Economics and now Durham and UCSD, she has specialised in philosophy and methodology of the social sciences with special attention to economics. Her current research focuses on objectivity and evidence, especially for evidence-based policy.

She was married to the late Sir Stuart Hampshire. They have two daughters, Emily Ellsworth Hampshire Cartwright and Sophie Hampshire Cartwright and two granddaughters, Lucy EC Charlton and Tabitha Cartwright Spray.

Upcoming Activities

March 17-20, 2026
Carl G. Hempel Lecture, Princeton University, USA
Keynote Lectures: Titles TBC

November 12, 2025
PPE Centenary Lecture, University College, University of Oxford, UK
Keynote Lecture: Title TBC

Oct 24-25, 2025
2025 Annual Toronto Graduate Philosophy Conference, Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada

Keynote Lecture: Title TBC

27-30 August, 2025
European Philosophy of Science Association Conference, Groningen, The Netherlands
Speaker: “Better Examples, Better Public Policy”

July 16-18, 2025
PPE Society London’s First Annual Meeting, King’s College London, UK

Keynote Speaker: ”Is Economics Queen of the Social Sciences?”

Recent Activities

July 8, 2025
Digital Trials, Real Dilemma: Philosophical Foundations of Evidence and Ethics in Computational Medicine, UK CEiRSI Training Webinar
Webinar Hosts: Nancy Cartwright, Wendy Parker, Liesbet Geris, Puja Myles, Mark Palmer, Jeff Bischoff, Alejandro Frangi

May 29, 2025
Nancy Cartwright: In Praise of the Inexact, the Inelegant and the Unassuming, Durham University, UK

May 22, 2025
How to Make Better Policy Predictions, with Child Protection Policy as a Case Study, Durham University, UK
Speakers: Nancy Cartwright, Eileen Munro, and John Pemberton

May 7, 2025, 4:30 PM – 5:45 PM (Norway Time)
CPS Book Club: The Tangle of Science: Reliability Beyond Method, Rigour, and Objectivity, University of Olso, Zoom
Guest Speaker, with Eleonora Montuschi, Jeremy Hardie, Matthew Soleiman, and Ann C. Thresher

April 25, 2025 (with a Pre-Session on April 8)
Experiments, Causal Inference, and Limits of EvidenceCenter for Empirical Philosophy and Behavioral Insights (CEPBI) Online Tandem Talk 2025
Keynote Speaker, with Berna Devezer and Andrew Gelman

April 5-6, 2025
Evidence-Based Medicine Reconsidered, University of Pittsburgh, US
Keynote Speech: “So, what IS mechanistic evidence?”

March 19-20, 2025
Seybert Lectures, University of Pennsylvania, US

Series Title: “Science for Use: In Praise of the Inexact, the Inelegant, and the Unassuming”
Lecture 1: “A Laudatio for Scientific Laws That Are Inelegant, Inexact, and Unassuming
Lecture 2: “In Defence of Loose Talk in Science – So Long as It Is Not Detached”

March 15-16, 2025
Pragmatism and Measurement: New Directions, University of Pittsburgh, US

Keynote Speech: “In Defense of Ambiguity

February 20, 2025
Nancy’s Birthday Celebration and Philosophy Workshop, University of California, San Diego, US

February 11, 2025 (2pm Pacific Time)
The Brazilian Society for Analytic Philosophy
Online Lecture: “Evidence for Singular Causal Claims”

See here for more information on Nancy’s upcoming activities and recent lectures.

Now Available

Also…

See here for a complete list of Nancy’s books and published articles.