latest news

2024:

April: (01-14): nearing the completion of Russell on Leibniz, and Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus (LFDC); (08): sent 5 pages of comments for Bill Sulis at World Scientific Publishing; heard from Mogens Laerke that Osvaldo’s and my volume has been sent to external referees at OUP; (10-14) worked on an edition of “Deriving the laws of motion from abstract principles” for presentation in Paris in June, and publication with Osvaldo in the Leibniz Review in the Fall. 

March: (01-20): Back and forth with Nick Griffin on Russell on Leibniz, refining chapters our last 4 chapters, his 5 and 7, and my 6 and 8; likewise with David Rabouin on LFDC, where we are refining chapters 1-7 and the bibliography, and making final decisions on what to include; (3-20): I write the external examiner’s report on Graham’s U of T thesis; (07) I agree to send some comments on Bill Sulis’ book manuscript, Time and Process, for World Scientific Publishing; (12-14): finish a referee’s report and a report on a prize essay for SELFF in June; (11-20): I agree to write the Foreword for Routledge’s new edition of Russell’s The Philosophy of Leibniz by September; (21): heard from the new submissions editor at OUP that they are prepared to consider Russell on Leibniz for publication; (31) heard from Osvaldo that Stefan Meier-Oeser has given us the all-clear for publishing Leibniz’s ms. LH 35, 10, 11 Bl 107 with translation.

February: (1-27) David Rabouin and I work on revising chapters 1, 2, 3 and 5 for our book; (5-29) Nick and I are working on finishing our book, and reach satisfying agreement in chapters 5 and 6; (7) Osvaldo and I finish our book manuscript, and submit it to OUP; Filippo Costantini’s and my proposed paper for the LSNA/SELFF conference in Paris is accepted; (11) Osvaldo sends me an interesting transcription of a paper by Leibniz on deriving the laws of motion from abstract principles, and I suggest we produce a paper on it; (19) I agree to referee a paper for the SELFF prize competition, and also to comment on a paper there. (27) I agree to be external examiner for a student of Jim Brown’s,Gary Graham, at IHPST in U of T.

January: (1-16) finished a revised version of chapter 4 and a new chapter 6 for Nick Griffin’s and my book, Russell on Leibniz, in response to Nick’s chapter 5 and the criticisms of Florian Vermeiren, and Massimo Mugnai’s rejoinder to him; (1-20) working with Osvaldo on final details for our book, Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite; (11-23) finished rewrites of chapters 1 and 2 of David’s and my book, Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus (LFDC), in response to referees’ suggestions of the first draft we had submitted. 

2023:

December: (3) finished a draft of the introduction for Osvaldo’s and my book, on which we subsequently made revisions; (6-10) received a proposal for a joint paper from Filippo Costantini, to be given at next year’s LSNA in Paris, and agreed to it; (8-10) discussed including a Zettel on Pascal in our volume with Osvaldo, and also another piece on infinitesimals he had sent me, but decided on including only the former; (8-13) received a draft of Nick’s 100 page chapter 5 for our book, and sent him detailed comments on it; (10) received David’s comments on the intro to LFDC, and revised accordingly; (12): David’s and my “Unviability” paper finally accepted formally by Historia Mathematica; (11-13) wrote up a blog for my visit to Bristol and sent it in.

November: (1-13) evaluated the book proposal by Florian Vermeiren: A Geometry of Sufficient Reason, and resumed corresponding with him after reworking my position in chapter 4 of my book with Nick, to whom I sent the revised chapter; (1-30): worked with Osvaldo on final drafts of most of our texts, making suggestions and corrections of each other’s work;  (23) finished a first draft of the rewrite of our introduction for David’s and my LFDC; (26) received a thorough book report on LFDC from Vincenzo De Risi, which is very helpful (but I already implemented most of his recommendations for the intro!) .

October: Gave my last two seminars in Bristol on “Time in Relativity” (Oct 4) and “Time in Quantum Theory (Oct 11)”, and a Public Lecture, “Time: What’s the Problem?” on October 6;  Discussed future collaborations with Karim and Tzuchien; (23) finally David and I received the peer review report on our book; and I set to work on revising the introduction, eventually making a new 20-page version.

September: at the University of Bristol as Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor, where I gave 2 seminars on Leibniz, and a Department talk on “Leibniz on Zeno’s Paradoxes of Motion”. Had great discussions with the students, and also with my hosts Tzuchien Tho and Karim Thébault (and also with James Ladyman) Also met and had a couple of interesting discussions with Giulia Rubino, who does experimental work on time in quantum theory.

August: (7-8): David Rabouin and I produced our final version of the rewrite of the “Unviability” paper, and submitted it.In the remaining part of the month, I completed a draft of the commentary for “Time and Place, Matter and change”, the last one for Osvaldo’s and my book. I also prepared my first seminar lecture and Department talk for Bristol.

July: (1-27): worked with Osvaldo on drafts of commentaries for texts 8, 9, and 10 (the Wagner-Leibniz exchange, the Bernoulli exchange, and the TSI). (July 31-Aug 6): attended the 11th Leibniz Congress in Hanover, Germany, where I read “Leibniz’s Principle of Equipollence and the Origins of his Dynamics”.

June: (1-2): Composed drafts of commentaries for texts 6 and 7 in Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite (“Every Thing Resists the Infinite” and “On the Incredible Subtlety of Things”); (2-19): translated selections from Leibniz’s exchange with Johann Bernoulli, and wrote a draft of a commentary. Also reached the decision not to reproduce the original language texts from the Akademie edition in both this volume and my volume with David Rabouin, because of issues with copyright (24): completed the signing of the contract with De Gruyter (Springer) for Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus with David.

May: (1–7): Corrected the final proofs of Leibniz: Journal Articles on Natural Philosophy for OUP; (10-11): composed a draft of the commentary of “On Time and Line” for Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite; (2-31): composed a 55-page first draft of ch. 7 of Russell on Leibniz, on the at-at theory of motion; (24): compiled all the interpretive essay for LFC ready for a first draft submission.

April: (04) “Unviability” accepted with revisions for Historia Mathematica; (05–11): completed proofs of “Leibniz and the Three Degrees of the Infinite” for the Leibniz Review, and Leibniz:Journal Articles in Natural Philosophy for Oxford University Press; (8) broke off working on Russell on Leibniz to reply to David’s comments on my translations (14), and to finish due and overdue papers on Leibniz’s dynamics; (11-28): “Sur la relation entre la métaphysique de Leibniz et la conservation de la force” for the Duchesneau Festschrift, and “Leibniz’s Principle of Equipollence and the Origins of his Dynamics” for the upcoming Leibniz Kongress in July.

March: (15) gave a paper to PHILLIUM in Paris at the Université Paris-Diderot, “Leibniz and Zeno’s Paradoxes”; (21–22): took part in a conference at the Università di Milano on Leibniz on Infinity, giving a paper “Leibniz on Metaphysical Points and Instants of Change”.

February: (1):finished a revised version of chapter 5 of LFC; (2-4) finished my presentation for Milan, “Leibniz on Metaphysical Points and Instants of Change”; (6-10): wrote up a draft of my paper for Federico Raffo Quintana’s volume of papers from the November workshop; (4-16): David and I revised our new version of the “Unviability” paper, and I worked with Osvaldo on Leibniz’s Reflections on Froidmont;(17): heard from  Bristol University that my application for a Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professorship to work with Karim Thébault at the University of Bristol in September and October 2023 has been accepted; (passim): copy-editing of Leibniz: Journal Articles on Natural Philosophy.

January: (7) took part in an interview with Paul Borrill on Clubhouse in his It’s About Time series, asking me questions about my book, The Reality of Time Flow, lasting 3 hours. (8) redrafted chapter 5 of David’s and my book, Leibniz on the Foundations of the Calculus (LFC), in response to David’s comments and suggestions; (11) discussed LFC with the commissioning editor at Birkhäuser, Frida Trotter, about giving her a draft of our nearly finished ms.; (14) took part in a second session of It’s About Time, this one by Lucien Hardy of the Perimeter Institute on the Asymmetry of Time; (15) woken in the middle of the night, I work out ideas for a paper on “Process, Misplaced Concreteness, and the Direction of Time”, which I write out; (15-16) finalize plans for our trip to Paris and Milan in mid-March, and (16-31) work on my presentation, “Leibniz on Metaphysical Points and Instants of Change”; (21) took part in an It’s About Time session with Giulia Rubino of Bristol University.