about me:

I am a philosopher specializing in early modern natural philosophy and mathematics. My main interests are time and the infinite, which I study in both historical and contemporary contexts. I explore the views of some of the great founders of natural philosophy, such as Descartes, Newton, Einstein and Leibniz, as well as those of subsidiary figures such as Beeckman and Robb, all the time with an eye to implications for time and the infinite in modern physics and mathematics.

Listen to this podcast! of Prof. Sam Levey, Philosophy,  Dartmouth College, NH, interviewing me about my prize-winning book on Leibniz, Monads, Composition, and Force.

I am very active in my writing and research collaborations, despite having retired in 2018. Based in Toronto, I am currently putting the finishing touches to three co-authored books:Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus, with David Rabouin from the Université de Paris, Russell on Leibniz, with Nick Griffin from McMaster, and Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite, with Osvaldo Ottaviani from Raboud. Published last year with Oxford University Press was Leibniz: Journal Articles on Natural Philosophy, which I edited, and for which I did about half the translations and wrote an introduction.

I am also active in various online forums, as well as giving talks and presentations (last year in Paris and Milan in March, and Hanover in August). I was invited as Visiting Distinguished Professor at the University of Bristol for September and October, where I gave a series of seminars and two lectures. View blog post! I am co-supervising a PhD student, Jeffrey Elawani, (with David Rabouin in Paris, where Jeff is completing his studies), and am also collaborating with Filippo Costantini, who is now also in Paris.

See Research Interests for more. See also latest news.