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2026:

February: (6) refereed Bill Sulis’ “Process and Space” for Entropy.

January: (4) wrote another dialogue in response to Bill Sulis’ review of my critique of Whitehead, and to his own new article, “Process and Space”, in which he gives his account of the generation of space by means of his theory of “informons”; (18-22) dialogued with Gerard Naddaf about Anaximander and the ancient Greek peri phusos tradition; (23) agreed to review David Rabouin’s Mathématiques et philosophie chez Leibniz (Vrin, 2025) for the Journal of the History of Philosophy; (26) The Vicarage Iconoclast is finally published as a peer-reviewed article in Qeios; (27-30): revised my chapter 6, and sent Nick detailed comments on his chapter revisions for our Russell on Leibniz.

2025:

December: (4) signed the contract with OUP for Nick’s and my book, Russell on Leibniz, which we will now subtitle “The Question of Relations”; (8) sent Nick my new version of chapter 8; (9) David Wright tells me he has submitted a review of my The Vicarage Iconoclast to Qeios; (9) Bill Sulis’ review of that paper has been received by Qeios, so that I now should hopefully have satisfied the requirements for its publication there as a peer-approved Version of Record; (9) sent Nick Griffin a draft of the new Preface for our book; (15) took part (virtually) in a round-table discussion on translating Leibniz at Sodalitas, the Italian Leibniz society, into which I was formally inaugurated; (16) Frida Trotter wrote with the welcome news that my Elysian Dialogues on the Infinite is currently under peer review with Birkhäuser; (21) sent a 10 page set of comments to Matthew McMillan on his and David Jekel’s translation of Leibniz’s Specimen Geometriæ luciferæ; and (22) corrected the proofs of my “Le rejet par Leibniz de l’existence des infinitesimaux en 1676” for the Leibniz à Paris collection, ed. Andrea Costa, David Rabouin and Paul Rateau.

November: (1-13) worked on revising Russell on Leibniz, and sent new versions of chapters 2, 4, and 6 to Nick for his inspection; (14-15) attended the Québec-Ontario Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, where I presented “Transcreation and Contiguity” again, with insightful commentary by Michael Massussi; (17-18) presented “Misreading Leibniz’s Space as an Intensive Magnitude: Russell and Deleuze” to the conference on Intensive Magnitude at the Université de Paris; (19) also in Paris, took part in a Round Table on my and David Rabouin’s Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus, with commentaries by Federico Raffo Quintana, Oscar Esquisabel, and Valérie Debuiche; (24) accepted referee’s report request from Philosophical Review; (26): heard from Luciana O’Flaherty that OUP have accepted to publish our Russell on Leibniz, and are sending the contract; (27): submitted final version of “Tracing the Origins of Leibniz’s Principle of the Equipollence of Hypotheses” to François Duchesneau for his edited issue of the Revue internationale de la philosophie; heard from Qeios that I only need one more positive review for my Whitehead paper to be published there.  

October: (10) five handsome hard copies of my and Osvaldo’s Leibniz: Writings on the Metaphysics of the Infinite arrived on my doorstep; (11-20) corresponded with Adrian Heathcote about my Vicarage Iconoclast paper; (17-19) took part in the Leibniz Society of North America annual conference, where I presented my paper “Transcreation and Contiguity”, with a learned commentary by John Whipple; (21) participated in the Red de Jóvenes investigadores Leibniz, where I commented on great papers by Omar Hraoui and Filippo Costantini; (22-26) corresponded with Bull Sulis about my critique of Whitehead; (23) submitted a revised version of my The Vicarage Iconoclast: Whitehead on Leibniz, Relativity and the Quantum to Qeios. It is available at https://doi.org/10.32388/932RTK.3 (24) presented “Transcreation and Contiguity” again to Sodalitas Leibnitiana, the Italian Leibniz society, with insightful commentaries by Omar Hraoui and Niccolò Fioravanti; (26-27):finished editing the referencing for the Elysian Dialogues and submitted it to Frida Trotter for possible publication with Birkhäuser.

September: (8): sent John Whipple a copy of my paper for the LSNA, since he is commenting on it; (8-30): on vacation in Italy and Greece; (18) received a new review through Qeios of The Vicarage Iconoclast from Timothy Eastman; (20) a revised version of the paper is now up at doi: https://doi.org/10.32388/932RTK.2.

August: (2) accepted an invitation from Sodalitas Leibnitiana (Roma) to speak at their workshop in October; completed a referee’s report for an article for a special issue of Historia Mathematica; (3) sent in a (final?) couple of corrections for the final version of the proofs of Leibniz: Writings on the Metaphysics of the Infinite; sent Lucy Sheaf revisions of her translation; (4) received all three reader’s reports from April Peake at OUP for Russell on Leibniz, all of them positive, but with criticisms that need addressing; (5) having completed a draft of an introduction for Elysian Dialogues on the Infinite, sent it to colleagues for feedback; (15) returned corrected final proofs of Monads and Points” to the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie; (18) invited by Federico Raffa Quintana to act as commentator on October 21 in the “Red de Jóvenes investigadores Leibniz” (“Leibniz Young Researchers Network”) he has helped establish in Buenos Aires; (26) “Monads and Points, Contiguity and Transcreation” published in the Archivi für Geschichte der Philosophie, doi: 10.1515/agph-2024-0179.

July: (1) learnt that my submission for the LSNA conference in October has been accepted; sent Kathrin Gardhouse detailed comments on the complete draft of her thesis; (3) sent in proofs and indexes of Leibniz: Writings on the Metaphysics of the Infinite to Vasuki in Chennai for review; (6) heard from Centaurus that they are publishing Jeff’s and Filippo’s article after my intervention as 3rd referee (solicited despite my declared conflict of interest); (15) agreed to help Lucy Sheaf of King’s College with her translation of Leibniz’s Letter to Arnauld of late 1671; sent back corrected proofs of my paper “Monads and Points” to the Archiv; (19) gave Jeffrey Elawani detailed feedback on his PhD thesis chapter on the Dynamica; (28) approved the final version of Kathrin’s PhD thesis for submission; my paper “The Vicarage Iconoclast: Whitehead on Leibniz, Relativity and the Quantum” is published by Qeios on their server, ready for comments: doi:https://doi.org/10.32388/932RTK.

June: (1): sent in an abstract for the LSNA conference in October, “Transcreation and Contiguity; Understanding Leibniz on Continuous Creation”; (2) Osvaldo’s and my “Deriving the laws of motion from abstract principles” came out in the Leibniz Review; wrote an abstract for a planned paper, “Events in Quantum Theory and Relativity”; (4) Osvaldo and I agreed with Jamie Mortimer’s suggestion to rename our book Leibniz: Writings on the Metaphysics of the Infinite; (1-15) continued writing my dialogue on Whitehead, The Vicarage Iconoclast; (12) accepted an invitation from Christian Leduc to speak at the Quebec-Ontario Workshop on Early Modern Philosophy, November 14-15; (13):accepted an invitation from Elias Vavouras to contribute an article for Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Democritus, “Democritus Through the Eyes of Newton and Leibniz”;  

May: (1-8) Got valuable suggestions from Dan Garber and Nick Griffin about how to rewrite Elysian Dialogues so as to make it more attractive to publishers; (1-15): Osvaldo and I continued working on the proofs for our Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite (LMI); (9) finished a complete draft of “Tracing the Origins” and sent it to François Duchesneau; (21) we finished the proofs of LMI;(26) my “Monads and Points, Contiguity and Transcreation: On the Development of Leibniz’s Metaphysics of the Continuum” has now been accepted for publication in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie; (27) heard from April Peake that readers’ reports for Nick’s and my book with OUP are still weeks away, a year after submission: scandalous! (31) attended some sessions of the CSHPM and CSHPS here in Toronto.

April: (1): Received copies of the new Routledge edition of Bertrand Russell’s The Philosophy of Leibniz, for which I have written the foreword; (5) began work on The Vicarage Iconoclast, a new paper on Whitehead’s metaphysics; (13) “Monads and Points” accepted for pubkication by Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, subject to minor revisions; (14) Filippo Costantini’s and my “Monads, situation, and infinite explanation” is published in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy; (18-30) received the proofs for Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite, and began correcting them with Osvaldo; (25) resubmitted “Monads and Points” as ““Monads and Points, Contiguity and Transcreation: On the Development of Leibniz’s Metaphysics of the Continuum,” to the Archiv; (26) submitted the final version of “Le rejet par Leibniz de l’existence des infinitesimaux en 1676” for the Leibniz à Paris collection, ed. Andrea Costa, David Rabouin and Paul Rateau.

March: (7) sent Elysian Dialogues to Stephen Latta at Broadview, and he will get the board to consider it in early April; (8) sent an abstract,“Tracing the Origins of Leibniz’s Principle of the Equipollence of Hypotheses”, to François, who in return sent me his review of Leibniz: Journal Articles in Natural Philosophy; (10) received an e-copy of David’s and my Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus from Birkhäuser (and 5 copies in the mail on March 31), and also confirmation of the acceptance of Filippo’s and my article in BJHP. (21-31): wrote much of “Tracing the Origins”.

February: (2) David Rabouin and I finished editing the proofs of our book, Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus (LFDC), and submitted it to Springer; (2-21) rewrote Elysian Dialogues as a consequence of the reordering of material in Days 2 and 3, as helpfully suggested by Nick Griffin; (21): finally got a reply from April Peake at OUP about publishing it, to whom I sent the latest version, but on (24) she wrote to say it was not the right fit for OUP; (25) the same from Hilary Gaskin at CUP; so I sent it to Adam Johnson at Routledge, who copied my request to Tony Bruce, the acq. editor—no reply; (23) invited by François Duchesneau to submit a paper on Leibniz’s dynamics & metaphysics for the Revue internationale de philosophie.

January: (4) received refs’ reports for a “revise and resubmit” of my paper with Filippo, and he is sending our reply to the suggestions to BJHP; (1-15) in constant dialogue with Tim Beck, the copysetter for OUP for Osvaldo Oattaviani’s and my book, Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite; there were particular problems with the setting for Leibniz’s exchange with Wagner, but we resolved them; (11) finally heard back from April Peake, the acquisitions editor at OUP, about my book with Nick Griffin, Russell on Leibniz, saying that we can expect word “later this term” (!!)—it has already been 7 months!; (22): I offered my new book, Elysian Dialogues on the Infinite, to April, with no reply; (23) composed abstracts of the chapters of David’s and my book, LFDC; (1-29): made progress on chapters 2-5 of Time: What’s the Problem?.

2024:

December: (1-14): wrote two chapters of a new book, Time: What’s the Problem? This was conceived in Bristol last year; (12) responded to the sample of Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite sent by the production team.

November: (1-7); further progress on Dialogue 3 of my latest book; (5-8) exchanges with Jagodisan, David and Frida about the indexes for the calculus book, which we submitted on the 13th; (7) Osvaldo prepared the Abbreviations for our joint book, a page that Jamie had reminded us we had forgotten; the book is now in production, with Vasuki Ravichandran as project manager; (21) finished revising the Leibniz-Cantor dialogue, so I now have a full draft of Elysian Dialogues on the Infinite; (22) submitted a revised verison of “Monads and Points: On the Development of Leibniz’s Metaphysics of the Continuum” to Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie.

October: (02-06): finished the second dialogue of Elysian Dialogues;(04): David and I finally heard back from Daniel Jagodisan about our book, and had subsequent correspondence also with Frida Trotter who sent us a draft of the book’s cover, and then made excellent suggestions for changing the blurb on the back; (05-12): working on the Third Day, a second dialogue between Leibniz and Russell. (12) sent David Rabouin the revised version of my paper for Leibniz à Paris; (12) more correspondence with Jagodisan in Chennai, who informed us the book is going into production; (25): heard from Jamie Mortimer of OUP about Osvaldo’s and my book, and he offered several very helpful suggestions about formatting.  (30): correspondence with the Australian filmers of A Calculated War. (31) heard from Ed Gibbons at Routledge that my forewrod for the Russell book is going to proofs, which I will receive on November 20.

September: (06): learnt from JHP that they decided not to accept my paper “Monads and Points”, although they gave me some useful criticism; (07): sent in my final version of the preface for Russell’s 1900 book; (02-14): made good progress on the Second Dialogue of Elysian Dialogues on the Infinite. [Sept 18-Oct 10: vacation in Paris, Sardinia and Friuli.]

August: (02) made final corrections to “Sur la relation entre la métaphysique de Leibniz et la conservation de la force” and sent them in to Christian Leduc; received a copy from Larry Jorgensen of his review of my (2023) book for the Leibniz Review, and refereed a paper for that journal; (02-03): Osvaldo and I heard back from Jamie Mortimer at OUP, and sent in the Authors’ Questionnaire; (01-07): finished a draft of “Monads and Points”, submitted to JHP August 26; (06–18): making corrections and format changes to Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus in response to editor’s queries; finishing a draft of the Foreword for the new Routledge edition of Russell’s (1900) book on Leibniz (submitted August 20, revised after feedback from Nick Aug 26). 

July: (01-02) Finished working on David’s and my paper for ArXiv, “On the Failure of the Correspondences alleged between Nonstandard Analysis and Leibniz’s Conception of Infinitesimals”; (07): read and critiqued a recently published article critical of my work by Valérie Debuiche, leading to plans for a writing up of my paper from Milan last year as “Monads and Points: on the development of Leibniz’s metaphysics”; (9-12) finished making corrections to my joint paper with Filippo, “Monads, Situation and Infinite Explanation”, and had a detailed correspondence with Jean-Pascal about a draft of a paper of his; (10-12) finished corrections for my paper for Leibniz à Paris,”Le rejet par Leibniz de l’existence des infinitésimaux en 1676″, responding to David Rabouin’s kind suggestions for improvement; (14) finished making corrections to the text of LFDC prior to formal submission, which was made on Friday, 19 July; (15-31) worked on the new paper, “Monads and Points”; (19) submitted a final version of Rabouin’s and my Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus to Springer; (21) finished final revisions to Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite and sent it together with a file containing the figures to Osvaldo for his inspection; (22) received copy of the Chinese translation of my Leibniz: Labyrinth of the Continuum; (23) began work on a new foreword for Russell’s Philosophy of Leibniz for Routledge; (30) submitted final version of Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite to OUP.

June: (05) Received the reader’s report on Osvaldo’s and my book from Jamie Mortimer at OUP, which was very positive, but suggested a few changes; also received the paper from Nan Lin that I am to comment on at SELLF on June 14; (11) gave a paper to a Mathesis workshop for myself and François Duchesneau, “Deriving the Laws of Motion from Abstract Principles: A Newly Transcribed Leibnizian Manuscript”; met with Simon Gentil to discuss preparation of the high-res figures we need for Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus, and promised them to Frida Trotter and Dan Jogodisan by mid-July; (14) presented a co-authored paper with Filippo Costantini, “Monads, Situation and Infinite Explanation”, and commented on a paper by Nan Lin, at the Leibniz Society of North America and the Société d’Études Leibniziennes de Langue Française joint conference in Paris; (17-30): worked on rewriting the manuscript of my book with Osvaldo to meet the reader’s criticisms.

May: (03) I heard from Yale University Press that they are putting out a Chinese version of my 2001 Labyrinth of the Continuum volume; (7-10) mutually helpful exchanges with François Duchesneau about our upcoming presentations on June 11 in Paris; (8) interesting exchanges with Jo Edwards about time direction and field excitations; (15) Filippo sent our joint paper for Paris off to our commentator; also, I was invited by Alex Tissandier to contribute a paper to a volume he is planning on Deleuze and Leibniz; (17) finished my presentation for the session with François in Paris on June 11; (22) met with Nick Griffin in the Bertrand Russell Centre to finalise all the changes for our Russell on Leibniz, over 400 pages in manuscript; (23) sent David’s and my complete manuscript (bar the High-Res figures) to Frida and Daniel at Birkhäuser; (24-25) had a brief but promising exchange with Ruth Kastner about quantum theory and events; (28) completed a draft of Filippo’s and my presentation for Paris; (31) received feedback and critical comments from Christian Leduc and Molly Kao on my paper for the Duchesneau Festschrift, to which I replied..

April: (01-30): 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; (10-26) composed a draft of “Deriving the laws of motion from abstract principles” for presentation in Paris on June 11, and publication with Osvaldo in the Leibniz Review in the Fall, and sent it to Osvaldo for his contribution and comments. 

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.

 

2024:

August: (02) made final corrections to “Sur la relation entre la métaphysique de Leibniz et la conservation de la force” and sent them in to Christian Leduc; received a copy from Larry Jorgensen of his review of my (2023) book for the Leibniz Review, and refereed a paper for that journal; (02-03): Osvaldo and I heard back from Jamie Mortimer at OUP, and sent in the Authors’ Questionnaire; (01-07): finished a draft of “Monads and Points”; (06–18): adding fina touches to finishing a draft of the Foreword for the new Routledge edition of Russell’s (1900) book on Leibniz. 

July: (01-02) Finished working on David’s and my paper for ArXiv, “On the Failure of the Correspondences alleged between Nonstandard Analysis and Leibniz’s Conception of Infinitesimals”; (07): read and critiqued a recently published article critical of my work by Valérie Debuiche, leading to plans for a writing up of my paper from Milan last year as “Monads and Points: on the development of Leibniz’s metaphysics”; (9-12) finished making corrections to my joint paper with Filippo, “Monads, Situation and Infinite Explanation”, and had a detailed correspondence with Jean-Pascal about a draft of a paper of his; (10-12) finished corrections for my paper for Leibniz à Paris,”Le rejet par Leibniz de l’existence des infinitésimaux en 1676″, responding to David Rabouin’s kind suggestions for improvement; (14) finished making corrections to the text of LFDC prior to formal submission, which was made on Friday, 19 July; (15-31) worked on the new paper, “Monads and Points”; (19) submitted a final version of Rabouin’s and my Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus to Springer; (21) finished final revisions to Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite and sent it together with a file containing the figures to Osvaldo for his inspection; (22) received copy of the Chinese translation of my Leibniz: Labyrinth of the Continuum; (23) began work on a new foreword for Russell’s Philosophy of Leibniz for Routledge; (30) submitted final version of Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite to OUP.

June: (05) Received the reader’s report on Osvaldo’s and my book from Jamie Mortimer at OUP, which was very positive, but suggested a few changes; also received the paper from Nan Lin that I am to comment on at SELLF on June 14; (11) gave a paper to a Mathesis workshop for myself and François Duchesneau, “Deriving the Laws of Motion from Abstract Principles: A Newly Transcribed Leibnizian Manuscript”; met with Simon Gentil to discuss preparation of the high-res figures we need for Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus, and promised them to Frida Trotter and Dan Jogodisan by mid-July; (14) presented a co-authored paper with Filippo Costantini, “Monads, Situation and Infinite Explanation”, and commented on a paper by Nan Lin, at the Leibniz Society of North America and the Société d’Études Leibniziennes de Langue Française joint conference in Paris; (17-30): worked on rewriting the manuscript of my boook with Osvaldo to meet the reader’s criticisms.

May: (03) I heard from Yale University Press that they are putting out a Chinese version of my 2001 Labyrinth of the Continuum volume; (7-10) mutually helpful exchanges with François Duchesneau about our upcoming presentations on June 11 in Paris; (8) interesting exchanges with Jo Edwards about time direction and field excitations; (15) Filippo sent our joint paper for Paris off to our commentator; also, I was invited by Alex Tissandier to contribute a paper to a volume he is planning on Deleuze and Leibniz; (17) finished my presentation for the session with François in Paris on June 11; (22) met with Nick Griffin in the Bertrand Russell Centre to finalise all the changes for our Russell on Leibniz, over 400 pages in manuscript; (23) sent David’s and my complete manuscript (bar the High-Res figures) to Frida and Daniel at Birkhäuser; (24-25) had a brief but promising exchange with Ruth Kastner about quantum theory and events; (28) completed a draft of Filippo’s and my presentation for Paris; (31) received feedback and critical comments from Christian Leduc and Molly Kao on my paper for the Duchesneau Festschrift, to which I replied..

April: (01-30): 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; (10-26) composed a draft of “Deriving the laws of motion from abstract principles” for presentation in Paris on June 11, and publication with Osvaldo in the Leibniz Review in the Fall, and sent it to Osvaldo for his contribution and comments. 

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.

 

Books by RTWA

Leibniz on Space Time and Relativity

Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity

December 16, 2021

The-Reality-of-Time-Flow

The Reality of Time Flow: Local Becoming in Modern Physics November 30, 2021

Richard T. W. Arthur LeibnizPaperback

Leibniz

Sept. 9 2014

Labyrinth-of-the-Continuum Richard Arthur

The Labyrinth of the Continuum

Sept. 3 2013

Monads Composition and Force Richard Arthur

Monads, Composition, and Force

Nov. 14 2018

Introduction to Logic Richard Arthur

An Introduction to Logic

Nov. 30 2016

Natural Deduction Richard Arthur

Natural Deduction

May 25th, 2011