Professor Nancy Cartwright from our top-rated Philosophy Department has been awarded the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Humanities for her influential work on the philosophy of science.
This prestigious international prize recognises five decades of scholarship that have helped connect philosophical thinking with how science is practised.
The award committee praised Professor Cartwright’s decisive contributions, highlighting how her ideas have reshaped understanding of causality, evidence and the laws of nature.
Her work challenges long-held assumptions about science.
She has argued against the view that all knowledge can be reduced to physics or that scientific laws operate as universal, exceptionless truths.
Instead, she presents science as a more complex and practical activity, grounded in a wide range of methods, tools and disciplines.
A central theme in Professor Cartwright’s research is her concept of a ‘dappled’ or patchwork world.
Rather than being governed by a single set of overarching laws, she suggests that different areas of science operate with their own models and principles.
This approach reflects the reality of scientific work, where theories, experiments and applied knowledge interact in varied ways depending on context.
Her 1989 book How the Laws of Physics Lie argued that many scientific laws are idealisations that only hold under highly controlled conditions.
Later, in The Dappled World, she developed the idea that disciplines such as biology or economics cannot even in principle be reduced to physics but offer their own forms of knowledge.
This perspective has been widely influential in both natural and social sciences.
Beyond theoretical debates, Professor Cartwright has focused on how science can better inform real-world decisions.
For the last three decades her work has focused in the social sciences, and particularly on how evidence can support effective public policy.
She emphasises that reliable decisions require combining different types of knowledge, including local and practical experience.
At Durham, she co-directs the Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS), promoting collaboration across disciplines.
Her research has contributed to projects aimed at improving policy outcomes in areas such as education, employment and social care.
The award highlights the continuing importance of rigorous, evidence-based thinking at a time when public trust in science is under pressure.
Our Department of Philosophy is ranked 39th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 and seventh in the UK in the Complete University Guide 2026. Visit our Philosophy webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
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