ABSTRACT
Nancy Cartwright is commonly held to advocate the capacities concept as a central tool for the philosophical analysis of practice in natural and social science alike. But it would be wrong to ascribe to her the view that social phenomena are governed by causal factors with stable capacities (or social capacities in short). Her point is rather that the methods many social scientists use presuppose, in order to be successful, the existence of capacities. But since in her view the record of success in employing these methods is at best mixed, to be consistent she cannot believe that the social world is actually for the most part governed by capacities.
