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Nancy Cartwright's Philosophy of Science Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science SERIE S EDITOR , Editor’s School 1. Cognition, Evolution and Rationality A Cognitive Science for the Twenty- First Century Edited by António Zilhão 2. Conceptual Systems Harold I. Brown 3. Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science Edited by Stephan Hartmann, Carl Hoefer and Luc Bovens T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science Edited by Stephan Hartmann, Carl Hoefer and Luc Bovens New York London T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution First published 2008 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2008 Stephan Hartmann, Carl Hoefer and Luc Bovens All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereaf- ter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trade- marks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Cartwright, Nancy. Nancy Cartwright’s philosophy of science / edited by Stephan Hartmann, Carl Hoefer, and Luc Bovens. p. cm. -- (Routledge studies in the philosophy of science ; 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-415-38600-5 1. Science--Philosophy. 2. Science--Methodology. I. Hartmann, Stephan, Dr. II. Hoefer, Carl. III. Bovens, Luc. IV. Title. V. Title: Philosophy of science. Q175.C373 2008 501--dc22 2007049822 ISBN 0-203-89546-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-38600-4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-89546-0 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-38600-5 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-89546-7 (ebk) T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution Dedicated to the memory of Daniela Bailer-Jones (1969–2006) T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution Contents Acknowledgments xi 1 Introducing Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science 1 CARL HOEFER PART I. Models and Representations 2 Standing Up Against Tradition: Models and Theories in Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science 17 DANIELA BAILER-JONES Reply by Cartwright 38 3 Nancy Cartwright on Theories, Models, and Their Application to Reality: A Case Study 41 ULRICH GÄHDE Reply by Cartwright 65 4 Models as Representational Structures 67 MARGARET MORRISON Reply by Cartwright 89 5 The Finewright Theory 91 PAUL TELLER Reply by Cartwright 117 T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution viii Contents PART II. Causes and Capacities 6 Models, Metaphysics, and Methodology 123 RONALD N. GIERE Reply by Cartwright 134 7 Experimental Realism Reconsidered: How Inference to the Most Likely Cause Might Be Sound 137 MAURICIO SUÁREZ Reply by Cartwright 164 8 Cartwright’s Realist Toil: From Entities to Capacities 167 STATHIS PSILLOS Reply by Cartwright 195 9 Invariance, Modularity, and All That: Cartwright on Causation 198 JAMES WOOdwARD Reply by Cartwright 238 10 The Principle of the Common Cause, the Causal Markov Condition, and Quantum Mechanics: Comments on Cartwright 242 IAIN MARTEL Reply by Cartwright 262 11 Social Capacities 265 JULIAN REISS Reply by Cartwright 289 12 Cartwright and Mill on Tendencies and Capacities 291 CHRISTOPH SCHMIDT-PETRI Reply by Cartwright 303 T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution Contents ix PART III. Antifundamentalism and the Disunity of Science 13 For Fundamentalism 307 CARL HOEFER Reply by Cartwright 322 14 Cartwright on Wholism 324 MICHAEL ESFELD Reply by Cartwright 337 15 How Classical and Quantum States Relate: Cartwright’s Views of Quantum Theory 339 BRIGITTE FALKEnbuRG Reply by Cartwright 365 16 Getting the Causal Story Right: Hermeneutic Moments in Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science 369 ALFRED NORDMANN Reply by Cartwright 389 Notes on Contributors 393 Index 395 T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution Acknowledgments Earlier versions of most of the chapters of this volume were presented at the workshop Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science at the University of Konstanz, Germany (December 16–17, 2002). The conference was sup- ported by the Thyssen Foundation, the Center for Junior Research Fellows at the University of Konstanz, and, through a Sofja Kovalevskaja Award, by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Federal Ministry of Educa- tion and Research, and the Program for the Investment in the Future (ZIP) of the German Government. We are grateful for their support. Each paper was refereed by two anonymous referees. We thank them for their construc- tive comments, and we thank Leah McClimans and Alice Obrecht for pre- paring the final manuscript. Stephan Hartmann, Tilburg University Carl Hoefer, ICREA and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Luc Bovens, London School of Economics and Political Science T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution 1 Introducing Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science Carl Hoefer OvERVIEW: CARTWRIGHT’S EMPIRICISM AND THE STANFORD SCHOOL Nancy Cartwright’s philosophy of science is, in her view, a form of empiri- cism but empiricism in the style of Neurath and Mill, rather than of Hume or Carnap. Her concerns are not with the problems of skepticism, induction, or demarcation; she is concerned with how actual science achieves the suc- cesses it does, and what sort of metaphysical and epistemological presup- positions are needed to understand that success. Cartwright, like many working scientists themselves, takes a rather prag- matic/realist stance toward observations and interventions made by scien- tists and engineers and particularly toward their connections to causality: Scientists see impurities causing signal loss in a cable, and they stimulate an inverted population, causing it to lase. Given these starting points, there can be no question of a skeptical attitude toward causation, in either singular or generic form. The fundamental role (or better, roles) played by causation in scientific practice is undeniable; what Cartwright does, then, is reconfigure empiricism from the ground up based on this insight. In the reconfigura- tion process, many mainstays of the received view of science take a beating; especially, as we will see, the fundamentality of laws of nature. We will come back to this point, as well as Cartwright’s views on causation, below. Rather than claiming allegiance to some traditional philosophical stand- point, Cartwright likes to think of her work as an example of the practice of the Stanford School of history/philosophy of science. This school is formed by fortuitous spatiotemporal proximity and a family resemblance in phi- losophy styles; the best way to describe it is by listing its practitioners: Pat Suppes, John Dupré, Ian Hacking, Margaret Morrison, Peter Galison, and of course Nancy Cartwright. One thing that unites Stanford School practi- tioners is a strong respect for scientific practice—actual scientific practice, as displayed in the best examples of scientific discovery and creation. If science has delivered genuine knowledge about our world—as it surely has—then studying its actual practices is the surest guide to an understanding of how that knowledge is gained. Case studies are indispensable for philosophy of T&F Proofs: Not for Distribution 2 Carl Hoefer science. Though not an end in themselves, they are invaluable for keep- ing our metaphysical and methodological speculations on track with real science. Examples of this method are prominent in all three of Cartwright’s main books (HTLPL, NCATM, and DW).1 In the first book, Cartwright looks into the theory and engineering of lasers, finding that the fundamental, laws- driven “received view” of how such applied-physics items should relate to fundamental physics proves false at every turn. In the second book, econom- ics examples are brought to bear on the metaphysical issues of causation and capacities to show that economic practice can only make sense if read as presupposing the existence of stable causal capacities, over and above regu- larities and probabilities. In the third, the BCS model of superconductivity is examined with the aim of arguing that quantum mechanics is a theory with definite, built-inlimits in what it can pretend to cover—and hence no refuge for the beleaguered fundamentalist. Stanford School philosophers are usually “empiricists” in some broad use of the term but, unlike their teachers, do not shy away from metaphysics when it is built into, and hence justified by, successful scientific practice. In Cartwright’s work, metaphysics appears in some very specific guises con- cerning causation and related issues (natural kinds, properties, dispositions, counterfactuals . .). But more generally, Cartwright has a metaphysical Big Picture that emerges with increasing clarity, becoming explicit in DW. She does not make her chief objective that of defending this big-picture view overtly. Instead, she points out how it emerges from her studies of sci- ence as a natural and largely overlooked alternative to the more traditional Humean/empiricist and Rationalist big-pictures. The name of this alterna- tive view is, of course, the “Dappled World”. Cartwright is no theist of course, but it is nevertheless correct to say that for her, God is an Englishman rather than a Frenchman. This means that the world is more than a bit untidy and poorly organized; it has superficial rules rather than deep, necessary principles. Another useful contrast is this: Cartwright is more Aristotelian than Platonist. Universal, eternal forms, if they exist, are certainly no use to us in accounting for what actually happens in the world, whereas things’ natures and capacities certainly are.
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