Talk:Nancy Cartwright (philosopher)

Nancy Cartwright (actor)
I'd like to move the Nancy Cartwright (actor) page back to Nancy Cartwright and add a note about this page. Is there anyone who opposes this? If there are no objects, I'll request the move in a week.-- Scorpion 06:29, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Follow-up: there were. See continuing discussion at Talk:Nancy Cartwright. Cool Hand Luke 02:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Newton’s law of gravitational attraction not idealist
The article claims

"For example, Isaac Newton's famous law of gravitation is F = G \frac{mm'}{r^2} which is an ideal law relating the force exerted by two masses at a distance."

But it is not an ideal law, but rather was intended as a real law. Rather it stated the real magnitude of the mutual gravitational force of attraction exerted on each other by any two masses at a distance.

The article also claims

"This is a ceteris paribus law; the law can only be true under idealized circumstances."

But this claim is false. The law could be true in real circumstances, stating the real mutual gravitational force of attraction any two masses exert on each other. The law does not purport to state all the forces acting on the two bodies, but only the gravitational attractive force between them.

These egregious elementary errors must surely be those of Wikipedia editors. Thus they should be flagged for justifying quotations.


 * Not true, see n-body problem and chaos theory. Solutions only exist for 2-body problems. In addition these claims are put forth by the subject of the article and are a part of her philosophical perspective. These statements are therefor examples of her postulations and do not require citations.


 * What is not true ? The law only states the magnitude of the force of the mutual gravitational attraction between two bodies. The difficulties of computing it for that between n – bodies has no bearing on the truth or falsity of the law for two bodies. Indeed the n-body problem itself presupposes the law is true for two bodies.


 * If the claims made are those of Nancy Cartwright rather than of Wikipedia, then it should be referenced where she makes such patently untenable claims.


 * I suggest the most prudent policy here is that such illogical nonsense is simply removed, as indeed it has been.

I guess you know nothing about NC philosophy. They are not "patently untenable claims", but rather central tenets of their Weltanschauung. Hope this serves as stimuli for you to read her work, and provide sound criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.137.21.140 (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

NC's work is complete and utter rubbish. One of the most overrated academics of our time.137.205.183.109 (talk) 15:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The above statement is not informative and appears to be a merely subjective opinion. Please elaborate so that objective facts are presented for consideration. 173.72.115.153 (talk) 13:41, 3 September 2018 (UTC)De Mikael Tibbets

Previous name?
Was Nancy Cartwright born Nancy Lynn Delaney? Nancy Cartwright does not show up on searches of the University of Pittsburgh alumni directory or in searches through university yearbooks or commencement programs. Nancy Delaney, a December 1966 Summa cum laude graduate, is listed as being Vice President of Chi Omega, a Pitt News editor, and other various activities that could be added to the description of her early years in this article if this can be confirmed. CrazyPaco (talk) 21:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I can verify that Miss Cartright was my Philosophy 101 lecturer at the University of Maryland in the 1970's. We only covered the philosophy of George Berkeley that semester. Danshawen (talk) 03:28, 28 June 2017 (UTC)danshawen

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Nancy Cartwright (philosopher). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110727173626/http://www.philsci.org/about/governance.html to http://www.philsci.org/about/governance.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 13:45, 30 December 2017 (UTC)