I specialize in early modern natural philosophy and mathematics, as well as contemporary philosophy of physics and mathematics. My main interests are time and the infinite, which I explore in both historical and contemporary contexts. I study the views of many of the founders of modern natural philosophy, such as Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Einstein, Russell and Whitehead, as well as of subsidiary figures such as Isaac Beeckman, Daniel Sennert, Gabriel Wagner and Alfred Robb, with an eye to implications for time and the infinite in modern physics and mathematics.

I retired from McMaster University in July 2018, but have been even more active in my research and writing ever since, having published or written eight books in that time, as well as many articles. Three of these books are co-authored: Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus (Birkhäuser, May 2025), with David Rabouin from the Université de Paris, Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite, (Oxford University Press, September 2025) with Osvaldo Ottaviani from Raboud University in the Netherlands, and Russell on Leibniz: The Question of Relations (OUP 2026?), with Nick Griffin from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The first demonstrates how Leibniz understood his own calculus, and includes many previously unpublished or untranslated texts by him, as does the second, a collection of “previously unreleased hits” by Leibniz on the infinite, while the third, a thorough study of Russell’s engagement with Leibniz’s philosophy, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. Less recently, Leibniz:Journal Articles on Natural Philosophy came out in 2003 (OUP); I edited it, did about half the translations and wrote an introduction. Finally, my latest book, Elysian Dialogues on the Infinite: Leibniz, Cantor, and Russell, has been accepted for publication by Birkhäuser. I also recently published a dialogue on Whitehead’s metaphysics of physics, The Vicarage Iconoclast:Whitehead on Leibniz, Relativity and the Quantum with Qeios. It is available at https://doi.org/10.32388/932RTK.4 .

I am active in various online forums, as well as giving talks and presentations. In  October 2025 I presented at the LSNA and at the Sodalitas Leibnitiana, and commented on two papers at the Red de Jóvenes investigadores Leibniz (all three remotely), and also gave papers in person in mid-November at the Quebec-Ontario workshop in Montreal and then at a workshop on intensive magnitudes in Paris, followed by a Round Table discussion of David Rabouin’s and my book. I also collaborated on two articles which have recently been published, one with Filippo Costantini  (in BJHP), and the other with Osvaldo Ottaviani (in the Leibniz Review). I helped my colleague Barry Allen supervise Kathrin Gardhouse at McMaster, who graduated in 2025, only months before Barry’s shocking demise. My last PhD student, Jeffrey Elawani, (whom I  co-supervised with Rabouin in Paris), has just graduated with PhDs from both McMaster and Paris-CIté.

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

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