less recent news
2022:
December: (4) Mixed reviews on the refs’ reports for the Historia Mathematica paper, which we have now decided to split into 2 parts; worked on the Conclusion for LFC ; (8) finished a draft of the commentary for Leibniz’s Reflections on Froidmont for Osvaldo’s and my book; (8) attended Filippo’s (and Jeff’s) last McMaster workshop; (12) transcribed and translated a new piece for LFC; (18-30) finished a complete draft of the transcriptions and translations for LFC.
November: (1-30) Worked on the Commentary on Leibniz’s reflections on Froidmont for Osvaldo’s and my book; (7) composed a French abstract for the Hanover talk next summer, organized by François; (18) Presented a paper to my Department at McMaster, “Leibniz and Zeno’s Paradoxes of Motion”, followed by drinks and dinner. This was in honour of my being inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; (24-28) attended the induction ceremony in Calgary; (19-30) worked further on the conclusion for LFC.
October: (1-12) Translated further texts for LFC, and began work on an introduction; (14) finalized my review article for the Leibniz Review on Ohad’s book in response to his reply; (16) finished up my reply to Vincenzo’s review of my (2021) after suggestions from Julia Jorati; (20-21) took part in a workshop organized by Raffo Quintana and Esquisabel in Argentina, Mathematics and the Mathematization of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy, where I gave the first talk, “On Leibniz’s rejection of the existence of infinitesimals in 1676”; (24-31) prepared my talk for the Department next month, on “Leibniz and Zeno’s Paradoxes of Motion”.
September: (6) Official announcement of my being made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, with the induction ceremony to be held in Calgary, November 25; (1-8) working steadily on the key texts for chapter 6 of David’s and my LFC; (6-8) received and corrected proofs of the Reply to Katz for The Mathematical Intelligencer; (9) gave a talk to the Philosophy Department at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, on “Leibniz’s Analysis of Change”, with a very enjoyable reception there; (14): invited by Stefan Sciaraffa to give a talk in McMaster’s philosophy series in November; (19) received formal invitation from Stefan Di Bella and Niccolo Guicciardini to the workshop on Leibniz on Infinity: New Studies, scheduled for 21-22 March; received invitation from the VP Research at McMaster to attend the RSC Gala in Calgary; (19-27) (while on holiday in Cancun) received a review of my Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity by Vincenzo De Risi, to which I have written a response on historical methodology for the Leibniz Review; also sent them the latest version of my review article on Leibniz on the three degrees of infinity. (29) “A question of fundamental methodology“ published on line in The Mathematical Intelligencer.
August: (2) Received an inquiry from Tzuchien Tho about my spending a couple of months at the University of Bristol in September 2023; David’s and my “unviability” paper for HM is deposited in the submission process; (4) finished the revisions of JANP and sent the mss to the others; also sent Federico Raffo Quintana my abstract for the October Argentinian workshop—he wants to publish the proceedings by February 2023; (2-6) David and I are working swiftly on chapters 5 and 6 of our book, with a new section §6.1 and rearrangement of the key texts; (10) officially submitted JANP to OUP; (12-16) wrote and submitted a review of Jeffrey McDonough’s A Miracle Creed for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
July: (1) received a very welcome honour that I cannot yet announce here; this month I have worked on my revisions of Leibniz: Journal Articles on Natural Philosophy; with Osvaldo Ottaviani on Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite; with Nick Griffin on Russell on Leibniz; but mainly on Leibniz on the Foundations of the Calculus with David Rabouin; I have also been teaching a graduate reading course with Jeff Elawani, with Filippo Costantini auditing, both on line and in person; (22) David R. and I received the go-ahead to submit “The Unviability of Interpreting Leibniz’s Infinitesimals through Non-standard analysis” to Historia Mathematica, after some minor revision, including a new intro; (23): “A question of fundamental methodology“ is accepted for publication by The Mathematical Intelligencer.
June: (1-8): Finished a draft of “Leibniz and the Three Degrees of Infinity” (8760 words), and sent it to Ohad for comment. Revised and resubmitted “A question of fundamental methodology“ for The Mathematical Intelligencer. Completed a draft of “The Unviability” paper (8284 words) and sent it to David Rabouin for his contribution, and commented on his new version of chapter 3 for our book. Accepted to contribute my presentation for the Duchesneau conference for the consequent volume to be published with Vrin. (9-30): worked on the translations for Leibniz on the Foundations of the Calculus, as well as rewriting ch. 4. Also resubmitted the joint article for The Mathematical Intelligencer through the formal process at the editor’s request.
May: (1-5): Invited by Jay Lampert to give a talk at Duquesne University in September. Osvaldo’s and my Leibniz’s Ad Schedam Hamaxariam was published in the Leibniz Review, and “On the significance of A. A. Robb’s philosophy of time, especially in relation to Bertrand Russell’s”, appeared online in the BJHP. (6-14): I continued to work on the paper for the colloquium in honour of François Duchesneau, Montreal May 12-14; which I gave on May 13, “On the relation between Leibniz’s metaphysics and the conservation of force”. The paper I co-authored with 8 other historians of mathematics, “A question of fundamental methodology: Reply to M. Katz and co-authors”, has been accepted by The Mathematical Intelligencer, subject to some suggested revisions.
April: (2-4): Returned corrected proofs of Osvaldo’s and my Leibniz’s Ad Schedam Hamaxariam for the Leibniz Review, and also returned further queries for both this and the Robb paper. Completed a revised version of chapter 4 for Nick’s and my Russell on Leibniz. (5-7): Worked on chapter 7 for the book with Nick. (8-13): Worked on translations and commentaries for chapters 2 and 3 for Metaphysics of the Infinite, and began a review article of Ohad Nachtomy’s Living Mirrors, on his interpretation of Leibniz’s Three Degrees of Infinity, producing almost 5000 words in 2 days, having just tested positive for Covid! Also submitted a reply to Katz and the Kittens co-authored with 8 other historians of math, to Mathematical Intelligencer. (14-21): finished the article on the Three Degrees of Infinity for possible publication, and a referee’s report on an article on Gödelian CRCs and the Arthur-Savitt diamond theory of the present. (22-30): translated and wrote commentaries for 2 of the texts for Osvaldo’s and my book, and worked on my paper for the Duchesneau colloquium in Montreal in mid-May. (26) Received Readers’ Reports on JANP from Peter Momtchiloff at OUP.
March: (2): examined Audrey Borowski’s thesis, Gottfried Leibniz in his World: The Making of a Savant (1672-1679) together with Dan Garber in a viva for her DPhil at for the University of Oxford. (passim): continued working with Osvaldo on Leibniz’s notes on Froidmont for our Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite; (8) submitted corrected final version of my Robb paper. (9-19) took a break with Gabriella for a holiday in Cuba. (23) invited to a virtual workshop on “Mathematics and the mathematization of nature in early modern philosophy” by Federico Raffo Quintano of Argentina, to be held October 20-21, 2022. Returned corrected proofs of my paper for Massimo’s volume. (26-29): wrote a five page book review (en français) of Valérie Debuiche’s Leibniz et l’expression for the Archives de philosophie at the request of Paul Rateau. (31) Returned corrected proofs of my Robb paper.
February: (3): À une session organisé à l’occasion de la Chaire d’excellence du Professeur Paolo Mancosu, in Paris, David Rabouin and I gave presentations on “Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Infinitesimals, Again”, mine virtual, subtitled “existence, quantity, and the actually infinite”; (9): translated key parts of Leibniz’s Accessio for the calculus book. (passim): continued work on our book in dialogue with David, completing a brand new chapter 2, detailing how Leibniz came to reject the real existence of infinitesimals in 1676; David also wrote a reply to Katz on our behalf, on which I made some revisions; (23) submitted corrected proofs of my paper for Massimo’s Festschrift volume; (27) learnt that my paper on Robb has finally been accepted by BJHP, with corrections to the referencing requested.
January: (9): upgraded my laptop from High Sierra OS to Catalina. (18) Finished a draft of my Paris presentation and sent it to David Rabouin. (31) translated Leibniz’s responses to Jenisch. (23): submitted final version of “On the Significance of A. A. Robb’s Philosophy of Time, Especially in Relation to Russell’s” to the British Journal for the History of Philosophy for Emily Thomas’s special issue on Anglo-American Philosophy of Time.
2021:
December: (1-8): Completed a first draft of the English translation of Leibniz’s (difficult) Reflections on Froidmont’s Labyrinth (17 pages) for my and Osvaldo’s volume Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite. David Rabouin and I revised the title and contents of our Leibniz on the Foundations of the Calculus, in which the appendix now contains some 40 pieces and fragments in translation. I wrote a first draft for a paper showing the unviability of a non-standard analysis interpretation of Leibniz on infinitesimals, for possible co-authorship with David Rabouin (29): Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity is published by Oxford University Press!
November: (10): Submitted a complete draft of Leibniz: Journal Articles on Natural Philosophy to Peter Momtchiloff of Oxford University Press. (11-29): Submitted Osvaldo’s and my Ad schedam Hamaxariam to Massimo and Glenn at the Leibniz Review, with an added footnote for the introduction on the 17th. Worked on Russell on Leibniz with Nick Griffin, completing a new draft of my first chapter, revising my second, and providing a new order of contents and comments on Nick’s first two chapters.
October: (14): wrote introduction to Ad schedam Hamaxariam and am revising it, the translation, and the transcription with Osvaldo. Feedback from co-translators of the Nat. Phil. volume almost complete. (23): submitted “On the Significance of A. A. Robb’s Philosophy of Time, Especially in Relation to Russell’s” to the British Journal for the History of Philosophy for Emily Thomas’s special issue on Anglo-American Philosophy of Time.
September: (6-8): finally finished the introduction for the translation volume, now titled Leibniz: Journal Articles on Natural Philosophy. Osvaldo and I also received the contract from OUP for our BJHP volume, now titled Leibniz: Writings on the Metaphysics of the Infinite. (21-23) Finished first drafts of all the translated articles for Leibniz: Journal Articles on Natural Philosophy., and uploaded them onto Google Drive for editing by my co-translators. Also finished correcting the second proofs of Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity, which will come out on December 16th this year.
August: I produced a shorter version of my paper for Emily Thomas’s issue of the BJHP, now titled “On the Significance of A. A. Robb’s Philosophy of Time, Especially in Relation to Russell’s”. Finished the 12-week Reading Course on “Leibniz’s Estimation of Force”, and have been replying to the copy-editor’s corrections and queries, and now the proofs, for Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity. Nick Griffin has also been in touch with revised versions of two of his chapters for our Russell on Leibniz. David Rabouin’s and my Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus temporarily on stand-by.
July: I’m finishing up the footnotes and introduction of Leibniz’s Publications on Natural Philosophy. (31): finished a draft of an article for Emily Thomas’s issue of the BJHP, “On the Chequered Reception of A. A. Robb’s Philosophy of Time”.
June : (11): Peter Momtchiloff confirms that OUP will publish Osvaldo’s and my Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite. (14): regretfully informed Ohad Nachtomy that I am WITHDRAWING from giving the keynote address at the conference on Science and Philosophy in the Early Modern Period at the Technion (Israel Institute for Technology) in Haifa on July 26-28. It has recently been brought to my attention that the Technion has been proactive in helping the state of Israel to develop the military technology used to repress the Palestinians in the recent attacks on Gaza (including destruction of a hospital and universities), and to bulldoze their homes in the occupied territories, through its close cooperation with Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Systems. I have therefore withdrawn my participation from this conference. (21): an exchange with Paul Lodge confirmed that the piece «“Comments of M. de Leibnits on the sixth Philosophical letter published in Trévoux, 1703.” Mémoires de Trévoux 1712, 1235-40» is to appear in his volume, not ours. (29): decided I have to include De Linea Isochrona in Leibniz’s Publications on Natural Philosophy, and set about translating it. Now done (July 1)
May: (14): presented a paper “Remarks on Leibniz’s ‘Towards a Science of the Infinite’”, along with Osvaldo Ottaviani, who presented “Reading Leibniz’s “Scientia Infiniti”: Some Preliminary Considerations”, for the seminar on “Leibniz on Infinity: A New Edition of the Scientia Infiniti” at the Università degli Studi di Milano, for students there as well as members of the Sodalitas Leibnitiana. Unfortunately, technical problems prevented it from reaching a wider audience.
April: continuing the edition of Leibniz’s scientific publications, editing the translations, supplying footnotes and writing the introduction. (16): took part in a discussion with Carlo Rovelli and members of Western University’s Rottman Philosophy of Physics Reading Group, where I was invited to present on my 2019 book on time; we read chapters 1 and 4; there was extended email discussion afterwards. (29-30): presented a paper “On the Chequered Reception of A. A. Robb’s Philosophy of Time” for the conference on Time at the Turn of the 20th C in Anglo-American Philosophy, April 29-30.
March: (2): revised the Glossary of Technical Terms for LoTSaR in the light of some suggestions from Vincenzo. (4): signed the contract with OUP for Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity, and set about writing for permissions. (10-23): was alerted to relevant Leibniz texts on analysis situs prepared by the Mathesis group. I have translated three of them and included them in Appendix 3; much correspondence about dating and permissions. (16): received from Tzuchien Tho his translations of the Leibniz-Hartsoeker exchange, and after some back-and-forth obtained from him a high resolution image of the figure involved. (25): completed submission of my manuscript for Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity to OUP.
February: (5): Heard from Peter Momtchiloff of OUP that they will publish Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity. I am currently writing the new introduction for it that I promised. (10): finished translating all of Leibniz’s controversy with Denis Papin for the OUP translation volume on Leibniz’s scientific publications. (20): sent David Rabouin some preliminary feedback on a section of fictions he has written for our Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus. (22): Finished revisions of Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity. Now I am just awaiting the contract. Also received word that Osvaldo Ottaviani’s and my transcription and translations of the Ad Schedam Hamaxariam has been accepted by Massimo Mugnai for the Leibniz Texts section of the 2021 Leibniz Review. (23): received and corrected proofs of my review of Leibniz’s Dissertation on Combinatorial Art (ed. and transl. Mugnai, van Ruler and Wilson) for the 2020 Leibniz Review. (Feb 26-March 5): translated Leibniz’s Specimen Dynamicum for the OUP translation volume.
January :(2): heard from Nick Griffin, so our long-delayed collaboration on Russell on Leibniz is now back on the table. (4): resubmitted the proposal of Ottaviani and myself to the BJHP editors for the OUP series. Am continuing work on the two translation volumes throughout this month. (6): received readers’ reports from OUP for Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity. Sent in a response 2 days later. Am working on revisions, including adding an introductory chapter. (18): received the go-ahead from the BJHP editors for submission of Osvaldo Ottaviani’s and my Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite to the OUP for their series. (29): Osvaldo Ottaviani’s and my volume Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite has been formally submitted by the BJHP editors to the OUP for their series. Continued translating for the Oxford volume on Leibniz’s scientific publications, and finished a re-translation of his papers on motion in a resisting medium.
2020:
December 9: submitted revised version of “Leibniz’s metaphysics of change: vague states & physical continuity” for which I received feedback on Dec 1. This paper has now been accepted for publication.
December: translated Leibniz’s Ad Schedam Hamaxariam from Ottaviani’s transcription, with intention of a joint publication.
November-December: working on two translation volumes: Leibniz on the Metaphysics of the Infinite with Osvaldo Ottaviani, the other Leibniz’s Publications on Natural Philosophy with Jeff McDonough, Sam Levey, Richard Francks, Tzuchien Tho, and Lea Schroeder. Also revised my ms. of Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity in response to helpful critical feedback from Osvaldo Ottaviani and Ed Slowik.
October 13: took part (by Zoom) in the Princeton-Bucharest Seminar Roundtable session on the relationship of metaphysics and physics in Leibniz, along with Christian Henkel, Dan Garber, and Anne-Lise Rey.
October 8: gave the inaugural talk for this year’s Visiting Speaker Research Seminar in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bristol by Zoom.
October 2: presented a paper (using Zoom) at the Mexico-Canada Early Modern conference at Western University.
October 1: finished a review of by Leibniz: Dissertation on Combinatorial Art, trans. & ed. Martin Wilson, Han van Ruler and Massimo Mugnai, for the Leibniz Review.
September 11: finally finished a complete first draft of Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity, and submitted it to OUP editor Peter Momtchiloff for inspection: since it is a companion volume to my Monads, Composition, and Force (2018), he had right of first refusal.
July: finished a 29 page final section of Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity, on motion through space; that’s a complete first draft, except for the conclusions to each chapter.
July 17: invited to give a talk in the Princeton-Bucharest seminar on Leibniz and the relation between metaphysics and physics. (Now set for Oct 13, 2020).
May-June: finished a formal rendition of Leibniz’s theory of time for Appendix 1, and am now reworking De motu, the third part of Leibniz on Time, Space and Relativity.
May 2: invited to participate in a conference in honour of François Duchesneau at the University of Montreal next year, Covid permitting.
April-May: working on Leibniz’s theory of space, the second part of Leibniz on Time, Space and Relativity, of which I finished a complete draft May 24.
April 7: after an incredibly frustrating time with the mechanics of submission and proofing (involving over 100 emails), David’s and my “Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Infinitesimals II” is suddenly published in the Archive for History of Exact Philosophy!
March-April: working with Osvaldo Ottaviani on a new book of translations of so far untranslated writings by Leibniz on the infinite, solicited for the BJHP and OUP series. Osvaldo is making the transcriptions.
March 10-30: completed a reader’s report and corrections for Massimo Mugnai’s edition of the Generales Inquisitiones, the first in a new series by BJHP and OUP, edited by Maria Rosa Antognazza, Mogens Laerke and Mike Beaney.
March 8: finished “3:15 am” interviews with Richard Marshall, and sent them to him.
February 15-March 12: working on the first part of Leibniz on Time, Space and Relativity, on time. Received hard copies of Leibniz and the Structures of Sciences, ed. Vincenzo De Risi (containing my dialogue between Leibniz and Cantor, and much else), and also of the edition of Leibniz et Leibnizianismes, ed. Jan Makovsky, contining my first French publication, “États vagues”.
February 14: presented a paper, “Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Infinitesimals II”, co-authored with David Rabouin, at a workshop on Leibniz and Inifnitesimals at UC Riverside (California), organized by Erich Reck and Adam Harmer, on Friday, February 14, 2020.
February 11: “Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Infinitesimals II” with David Rabouin, accepted for publication by Archive for the History of Exact Philosophy.
February 10: presented “Leibniz’s analysis of change: vague states, physical continuity, and the calculus”, as well as a version of David Rabouin’s paper, “Leibniz on the reduction to identites”, on his behalf (and with the assistance of my host, Marco Panza), at the OCIE seminar in History and Philosophy of Science and Logic, Chapman University, Orange, CA.
January 28: heard from Peter Momtchiloff that OUP has accepted to publish the translation volume I am editing and co-translating, Leibniz’s Publications on Natural Philosophy.
January 13: submitted a complete draft of “Leibniz’s metaphysics of change: vague states & physical continuity” for inclusion in the Festschrift volume for Massimo Mugnai, Thinking and Calculating. Essays on Logic, its History and its Applications.
January 11: finished corrections to “Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Infinitesimals II” with David Rabouin, with a view to submission to Archive for the History of Exact Philosophy.
January 02: my dialogue “Leibniz in Cantor’s Paradise: A Dialogue on the Actual Infinite” has finally emerged from its cocoon (I composed the first draft 20 years ago!), and is published in the online edition of Leibniz and the Structure of Sciences: Modern Perspectives on the History of Logic, Mathematics, Epistemology, Boston Studies vol. 337, edited by Vincenzo De Risi, Cham, Switzerland, Springer, 2019.
2019:
December 11: learned that I have been awarded the 2019 Journal of the History of Philosophy Prize for best book in the history of philosophy of 2018 for Monads, Composition and Force: Ariadnean threads through Leibniz’s labyrinth (Oxford University Press).
December: working on “Leibniz’s metaphysics of change: vague states & physical continuity” for inclusion in the Festschrift volume for Massimo Mugnai, Thinking and Calculating. Essays on Logic, its History and its Applications.
November 20: finished “Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Infinitesimals II” with David Rabouin, and now we’re exploring options for publication.
November 13-16: gave an invited talk at Harvard University’s History of Philosophy Workshop, “Leibniz’s metaphysics of change: vague states & physical continuity”, after taking part in Jeff McDonough’s graduate seminar and office hour.
October-December: working on Leibniz on Time, Space and Relativity; abandoned plans for it to be a selection of papers in favour of reworking the material into three main sections, the middle one built aound “Causes and the relativity of motion in Leibniz’s physics”, which is too long for inclusion in journals.
Sept 27-8: took part in a conference at Université Paris 7 on the Principle of Indiscernibles from Leibniz to Quantum Theory, where I presented a paper “Einstein’s tacit use of the PII in establishing his relativity theories”.
Sept 25: David Rabouin presented our paper to Mathesis in Paris in the morning; in the afternoon, there was a round-table on my Monads, Composition, and Force, where I made replies to the criticisms of 3 graduate students from Belgium, and 3 colleagues from Belgium and France.
Late July-early Sept working with David Rabouin on “Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Infinitesimals II”: we have produced a 50 page paper in the short version! Since there are many previously untranslated texts that we have translated in support, we have proposed writing a longer version of the paper as a monograph, with the translations appended: Leibniz on the Foundations of the Differential Calculus, accepted by Vincenzo De Risi for submission to referees (when ready) for his series with Birkhäuser.
July 29: received hard copy by UPS of the massive Mario Bunge: A Centenary Festschrift, containing my “Mario Bunge on causality: some key insights and their Leibnizian precedents” (pp. 185-204).
July 27: Invitation confirmed to present on my new Leibniz book to a joint session in Paris by invitation of ANR Mathesis, the Séminaire Mathesis at the ENS, and members of the ULB of Brussels on Wednesday, September 25. David Rabouin and I will also present our work on Leibniz’s infinitesimals.
July 18: finished a complete draft of “Causes and the relativity of motion in Leibniz’s physics” (47 pp., 18,941 words).
July 10: invited to talk on Monads, Composition and Force at the Séminaire Leibniz at the Sorbonne in September.
July 8: invited to talk on Monads, Composition and Force at the ULB in Brussels in September.
July 3: “États vagues” accepted by the Journal philosophique of Prague.
June 27: invited to talk on Monads, Composition and Force at the séminaire Mathesis in Paris in late September, before the workshop on the “Identity of indiscernibles from Leibniz to Quantum Mechanics”, to which I have been invited on Sept 27-28.
June 17-21: finished a complete draft of “Leibniz as a precursor to Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory” (33 pp., 13,788 words), for Chris Meyns’s volume, dedicated to John Collier, on whose ideas it builds.
May 31: finished a complete draft of “Russell’s Rejection of the Relational Theory: Leibniz, Lotze, and Internal Relations” (49 pp., 19,198 words), the second of my chapters for the book with Nick Griffin, and sent it around for comments.
May 17: presented a paper, “Leibnizian Mereology of Duration and Change”, at the Society for Exact Philosophy meeting at York University, Toronto.
May 15: received hardback copies of The Reality of Time Flow, which is now out!
April 8: invited by Jeffrey McDonough to present at the Harvard History of Philosophy Workshop next November 14-15.
March 19: invited to contribute a paper to Emily Thomas’s special issue of the BJHP on time around the turn of the twentieth century,: offered “On the Chequered Reception of A. A. Robb’s Philosophy of Time”.
March 1: The Reality of Time Flow now in production and typesetting phase.
February 14: received an electronic copy of the 2018 Leibniz Review, which, I am grateful to say, was dedicated to myself and my labours in Leibnizian studies. It contains: an appreciation by my friend and colleague Massimo Mugnai; my article on “The Hegelian Roots of Russell’s Critique of Leibniz”; an appreciative critical review by Sam Levey of my Monads, Composition and Force, with a response by myself; and a review by Russell Wahl of the (254 page) edition of the journal Russell, co-authored by myself, Jolen Galaugher and Nicholas Griffin, devoted to Russell’s work on Leibniz.
February 8: submitted my article for the Journal philosophique of Prague, “États vagues, changements discontinus, et le principe de continuité chez Leibniz”.
February 3: sent off lists for the name and subject indexes for The Reality of Time Flow.
January 29: finished the illustrations for the book, revising the references, and setting them at the end of each chapter. Submitted final ms. to Springer.
January 14: submitted the corrected proofs for my response to Samuel Levey’s review of Monads, Composition and Force to the Leibniz Review.
January 8: learned that The Reality of Time Flow has been accepted for publication in Springer’s Frontiers Collection; am now putting finishing touches to the formatting before final submission.
January 7: finished an English translation of Leibniz’s “Cum prodiisset…”; and also submitted the corrected proofs for “The Hegelian Roots of Russell’s Critique of Leibniz” to the Leibniz Review.
2018:
December 17: finished a draft of “États vagues, changements discontinus, et le principe de continuité chez Leibniz” for le Journal philosophique de Prague.
November 28: submitted The Reality of Time Flow: Local Becoming in Modern Physics to Springer Verlag for their Frontiers of Science series, ed. Angela Lahee, where it is now under review.
November 22 and 27: finished composing the Preface and Conclusion, respectively, of The Reality of Time Flow.
November 9: presented “Monadic States: Leibniz’s Law of Continuity and the Discreteness of Change” to the workshop staged by the Leibnizian Society of the Central Europe jointly with SELLF, Leibniz et Leibniziennes, at the Centre for Theoretical Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czechia.
November 8: presented a paper “On the Hegelian Roots of Russell’s Critique of Leibniz” at the Centre for Formal Epistemology, Institute of Philosophy, Prague, Czechia.
November 7: presented a paper to SPHERE at Paris 7, “Monadic States: Leibniz’s Law of Continuity and the Discreteness of Change”.
November 6: appointed Vice-President of the North American Leibniz Society, effective Dec 1, 2018, for a 2 year term.
November 1: submitted “The Hegelian Roots of Russell’s Critique of Leibniz” to the Leibniz Review (resubmitted on the 6th).
October 26: submitted a reply to Samuel S. Levey’s review of my Monads, Composition and Force for the Leibniz Review: “On the Non-idealist Leibniz; a Reply to Sam Levey”.
October 18: Monads, Composition and Force published in the UK and Europe.
October 11-14: attended the LSNA and SELLF joint conference in Montreal, where I presented a plenary lecture,“Les monads comme constituants des corps” on Oct 13.
October 5: finished paired review of François Duchesneau and Justin Smith’s The Leibniz-Stahl Controversy and Stephen Voss’s The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence for Isis.
Sept 26-Oct 11: wrote and revised a review of Stewart Shapiro and Geoffrey Hellman’s Varieties of Continua: From Regions to Points and Back for Philosophia Mathematica.
Sept 01-Oct 15: revising The Reality of Time Flow.
August 17: finished a complete draft of The Reality of Time Flow, save for a Preface and Conclusion. Am now soliciting feedback from other scholars.
July 9–July 31: finished a complete draft of chapter 3 of The Reality of Time Flow; working on the last chapter on time in quantum theory, chapter 7.
July 20: created the index for “Mario Bunge on causality”.
July 16: finished creating the index for Monads, Composition and Force.
July 1: RETIRED! and became Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at McMaster.
June 14, and again on July 13: completed proofs of Monads, Composition and Force.
June: sorting out my pension, vacating my office, and working on The Reality of Time Flow.
May 17-18: Co-organized and co-hosted a workshop, “Philosophy of Time: A View from the Past”; gave a paper “Neither A nor B” on the 18th.
May 11: presented “Local Time Flow and Relativity” to the Centre for the Philosophy of Time in the Dipartimento di Filosofia, Università degli Studi di Milano.
May 10: gave the 4th and last lecture, “Monadic States: Leibniz’s Law of Continuity and the Discreteness of Change”.
May 9: gave the third lecture, “Scaliger, Sennert, Boyle and the Origins of Leibniz’s Theory of Forms”.
May 8: gave the first two lectures in my course in Milan: “Monads and Actual Parts: Bodies as Phenomena”, and “Constructing Bodies from Constitutive Unities”.
April 23-May 26: in Milan as Visiting Research Fellow; to give a course of lectures in the Dipartimento di Filosofia, another in the Centre for Philosophy of Time Series, and to cohost a workshop, “Philosophy of Time: A View from the Past”.
April 16-20: attended the 45th International Conference in the Philosophy of Science at the IUC in Dubrovnik, where I gave a talk on “Local Time Flow and Relativity”.
April 6: gave a talk to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa, “On the Hegelian Roots of Russell’s Critique of Leibniz”.
March 23: finished draft of chapter 5, of The Reality of Time Flow, “Relativity and the Present”, finishing chs. 3, 6 and 7.
March 16: gave a talk to the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at UC Irvine, a revised version of “Monads as Constituents of Bodies in Leibniz’s Metaphysics”.
February 16: finished and submitted my paper for the Bunge Festschrift, “Mario Bunge on causality: some key insights and their Leibnizian precedents” (9330 words).
February 12: learned that the workshop I was due to speak at in Bremen in June has been cancelled.
February 2: finished up the editing of my dialogue “Leibniz in Cantor’s Paradise”, submitted for the volume edited by Vincenzo De Risi, to come out with either Boston Studies or with Birkhäuser.
January 23: J’ai soumis ma contribution pour l’hommage au Professeur Jean-Marie Beyssade, “Jean-Marie Beyssade—une note personnelle d’appréciation”, pour publication par Denis Kambouchner et Vincent Carraud, Presses Universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne.
December-February: continued writing of The Reality of Time Flow: Local Becoming in Modern Physics. Chapters 3, 5 and 6 nearing completion.
2017:
November 29: submitted complete, revised manuscript of Monads, Composition and Force: Ariadnean threads through Leibniz’s labyrinth to Oxford University Press for publication. The submitted version is some 180,000 words. (See research interests for a description.)
November 27: accepted an invitation to a workshop on “Teleological Explanations between Leibniz and Kant”, to take place at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem on June 25-27, 2018.
November 14: revised version of my paper,“Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Actual Infinite”, accepted for Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Ohad Nachtomy and Reed Winegar, the volume itself having just been accepted by Springer.
November 3: accepted an invitation to present a talk to the Philosophy Department at the University of Rome while I am in Italy in May, 2018.
October 13-15: co-hosted the 11th Leibniz Society of North America conference, at the University of Toronto, where I commented on a paper by Alejandro Naranjo Sandoval, ‘Saving Truth from Arbitrariness’. See conference website for details.
October: helped invite speakers for a workshop on philosophy of time in historical perspective, to be held at the university of Milan, May 2018.
September 22: gave a talk to the Department of Philosophy at McMaster, a revised version of “Monads as Constituents of Bodies in Leibniz’s Metaphysics”.
August 18: special issue of the journal Russell appears on the web, featuring Russell’s Leibniz Notebook, his marginal notes on his Latin editions of Leibniz’s writings, Moore’s notes on his Leibniz lectures (all of which I helped compile and edit) + an abandoned preface and the preface to the French edition of his book on Leibniz, and notes on its composition: https://mulpress.mcmaster.ca/russelljournal/issue/view/329
July-November: worked on revisions to Monads, Composition and Force.
July 7: accepted an invitation to present a talk to the Philosophy Department at the University of Ottawa on Friday, April 6, 2018.
July 3: accepted an invitation to a workshop on local and global theories of time at the University of Bremen, Germany, June 21-22, 2018.
June 12: finished final draft of “Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Actual Infinite”.
June 7: participated in a day long tribute to the memory of Jean-Marie Beyssade, Séminaire Descartes, chez l’Université Sorbonne, Paris.
June 6: gave an invited paper, “Mathematics and the Leibnizian actual infinite”, to the PhilMath Intersem at Université Paris-Diderot-7 on June 6th, on the theme of “the place that infinity has played in the history of mathematics”.
June 1-2: gave an invited paper, “Monads as Constituents of Bodies in Leibniz’s Metaphysics”, to a conference on the metaphysics of composition, from a historical and systematical point of view, at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
May 8: finished first draft of “Leibniz’s Syncategorematic Actual Infinite” invited chapter (28 pages; 10,723 words) for Studies of the Infinite in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Ohad Nachtomy and Reed Winegar. Cambridge University Press.
May 3: did proofs of “Thought Experiments in Newton and Leibniz”, for The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, ed. James Robert Brown, Yiftach Fehige, and Michael T. Stuart. Forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
April 24: submitted abstract for my paper for the Bunge Festschrift, “Causality: Bunge’s seminal insights and their Leibnizian Precedents”.
March-April: continued work on The Reality of Time Flow.
March 21: Informed that Polity recently sold the Japanese translation rights of my Leibniz to Keiso Shobo via The English Agency. Their edition should be published in around two years from now.
Feb 28: Submitted application to the Institute of Advanced Study in Paris for February–June 2019.
Feb 8: “Newton and Leibniz on the Relativity of Motion” published onine in Oxford Handbooks Online.
Feb 1: Invited to the PhilMath Intersem at Paris 7 on June 6th, to present on Leibniz on the theme of “the place that infinity has played in the history of mathematics”.
Jan 22: invited to contribute to the Bunge Centenary Festschrift to be published by Springer in June 2019, edited by Michael Matthews, celebrating Mario Bunge’s long-standing and wide-ranging contribution to philosophy, physics and other fields in his 100th year.
Jan 13: selected by the Philosophy Department of the Università degli Studi di Milano as a senior visiting fellow for five weeks in April-May 2018, where I will give a course of 5 lectures to students, and 2 talks to the Philosophy Department, on topics in philosophy of time, and interpretation of Leibniz.
2016:
Dec 19: accepted to give a paper “Monads as Constituents of Bodies in Leibniz’s Metaphysics” at the conference Wholes and parts: systematical and historical perspectives on the metaphysics of composition organized by Jean-Pascal Anfray, June 1-2, 2017.
Dec 12: Tercentenary Essays on the Philosophy and Science of Leibniz (ed. Erik Vynckier, Lloyd Strickland and Julia Wekend; Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) is finally published, including my chapter “Leibniz, Organic Matter and Astrobiology”, pp. 87-107.
Dec 7: working on final draft of Moore’s Notes on Russell’s Leibniz Lectures. The three articles co-authored with Nick Griffin and Jolen Galaugher that will comprise a whole issue of the journal Russell now stand as follows: “Russell’s MARGINALIA” 87 pp., “Russell’s NOTEBOOK” 51 pp., “MOORE’s Lecture Notes” 47 pp.
Dec 4-5: finished draft of chapter 4 of The Reality of Time Flow.
Nov 20: a Japanese translation of my “Leibniz from the Perspective of Modern Science”, kindly translated by Dr. Shinji Ikeda, appeared in the Studia Leibnitiana Japonica, 2016, pp. 71-98.
Nov 20: presented a paper for the Séminaire Descartes at the Sorbonne, University of Paris, on “Le part de Beeckman”.
Nov 17: learned from Polity Press that arrangements have been made for a Japanese translation of my Leibniz by Keiso Shobo; subsequently confirmed by Dr. Shinji Ikeda.
Nov 15: presented a paper “Leibniz and Quantum Theory” and took part in a round-table discussion on “Leibniz and the Sciences” at an international workshop convened by the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences and the University of Leipzig, Leipzig.
Nov 11: “Leibniz’s Causal Theory of Time Revisited” accepted for publication by the Leibniz Review.
Oct 9-11: corrected and submitted final proofs for Introduction to Logic to Broadview Press.
Oct 7: participated through Skype as a consultant professor in the EM Infinity Seminar at Harvard University taught by Jeffrey McDonough.
Oct 31: finishing drafts of chapters 1-2 of The Reality of Time Flow.
Aug 1-Oct 20: with Nick Griffin, finishing corrections to “Russell’s Leibniz Notebook” and notes for “Moore’s Notes on Russell’s Leibniz Lectures”.
Sept 4: submitted abstracts of “Leibniz’s syncategorematic actual infinite” for a volume on The Infinite in Early Modern Philosophy edited by Ohad Nachtomy and Reed Winegar, and of my upcoming Leipzig talk, “Leibniz and Quantum Theory”.
July 30-Aug 6: finished corrections to and amendments of the second edition of my Natural Deduction for Broadview Press, now to be retitled An Introduction to Logic, using natural deduction, real arguments, a little history and some humour; designed and launched this new website!
July 13-29, 2016: funded research at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin on either side of attending the Leibniz-Kongress in Hannover, Germany, where I presented two papers: “Leibniz’s Causal Theory of Time Revisited” for a session on Leibniz and time, and “Monadic States, Continuous Creation and Leibniz’s Law of Continuity”, for a session on Leibniz and the continuum.
June 2016: paper “On the Mathematization of Free Fall: Galileo, Descartes and a History of Miscontrual”, 81-111 in The Language of Nature: Reassessing the Mathematization of Natural Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol, 28, ed. Geoffrey Gorham, Benjamin Hill, Edward Slowik and C. Kenneth Waters.
May 4-June 2, 2016: research leave in Paris with SPHERE (séminaire d’histoire et de philosophie des mathématiques) at Université de Paris-Diderot, meeting with PhD students working in early modern math, and giving three presentations: “Leibniz’s infinitesimals and their interpretation” (May 9) “L’espace-temps dans l’analyse situs de Leibniz” (May 20) and “Some remarks on my article ‘Leibniz’s syncategorematic infnitesimals’ ” (May 24) at the invitation of Prof. David Rabouin.
May 13, 2016: submitted finished co-edited edition of Russell’s “Notes on Leibniz” made in preparation for his Cambridge lectures in 1898, for the journal Russell.
May 3, 2016: submitted complete manuscript of Ariadnean Threads: Leibniz on substance and the composition of matter (347 pp.) to Oxford University Press, for readers’ review.
April 25, 2016: completed and submitted “Thought Experiments in Newton and Leibniz” for the Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, edited by James Robert Brown, Yiftach Fehige and Michael T. Stuart.
April 7, 2016: presented “On the Hegelian Roots of Russell’s Critique of Leibniz” to the Early Modern Philosophy Seminar at Western University.
February 24, 2016: completed final editing of “Leibniz, Organic Matter and Astrobiology” for the volume Tercentenary Essays on the Philosophy and Science of G. W. Leibniz .
February 12, 2016: presented a paper on “Scaliger, Sennert, Boyle and the Origins of Leibniz’s Theory of Forms”, as the keynote address at the workshop on Early Modern Philosophy and Intellectual History at the University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan.
February 10, 2016: gave a public lecture at the University of Tokyo on “Leibniz from the Perspective of Modern Science”, with commentary by Dr. Hiroyuki Inaoka and Dr. Kosuke Abe.
2015:
August 2015: completed a joint article with Nicholas Griffin and Jolen Galaugher, “Marginalia in Russell’s Copy of Gerhardt’s edition of Leibniz’s Philosophische Schriften” (103 pp), which has been accepted for the journal Russell. Together with an edition of Russell’s notes on Leibniz in preparation for his lectures and Moore’s notes on his lectures, also edited by us, it will form one complete issue of the journal.
July 4, 2015: presented a paper “Leibniz, Organic Matter and Astrobiology”, to the international Conference at the Lampeter Campus of the University of Wales. Subsequently submitted for the conference volume Leibniz-scientist, Leibniz-philosopher.
May 25, 2015: presented “Leibniz’s Infinitesimals and their Interpretation”, at the Society for Exact Philosophy Annual Conference, at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
April 15, 2015: presented “Spacetime in Leibniz’s Analysis Situs”, at the 42nd Annual Philosophy of Science Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
April, 2015: began work on “Russell, Leibniz and the ‘at-at’ theory of motion and passage”, my second chapter in Russell on Leibniz, co-authored with Nick Griffin and Jolen Galaugher.
April 2, 2015: finished and submitted revised draft of “Newton and Leibniz on the relativity of motion”, an entry in The Oxford Handbook on Newton, ed. Chris Smeenk and Eric Schliesser.
March 26, 2015: finished draft of “The many ironies of Russell’s critique of Leibniz’s relationalism” (41 pages), a chapter in Russell on Leibniz, co-authored with Nick Griffin and Jolen Galaugher.
February 9, 2015: gave the Origins Colloquium on “Leibniz, Organic Matter and Astrobiology”, in the Origins Institute, McMaster University.
February 9, 2015: contract signed with Springer for a book defending the reality of temporal passage in modern physics, tentatively titled The reality of time flow: local becoming in modern physics.
January 12, 2015: presented “The many ironies of Russell’s critique of Leibniz’s relationalism” to the Dept. of Philosophy, McMaster University.
January 9, 2015: presented “Leibniz’s infinitesimals and their interpretation” to the Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, McMaster University.
2014:
October, 2014: My latest book, Leibniz, in the Classic Thinkers series of Polity Press, is released in North America. Reviews coming soon in the Leibniz Review, the Journal of Consciousness Studies, and the Time Literary Supplement.
July 1, 2014: Presented paper “Spacetime in Leibniz’s Analysis Situs”, at the conference The Science of Space: Geometry and Metaphysics in Leibniz, at the Max Planck Institute for the Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig.
June 24, 2014: Presented paper “Motion Geometrically Considered, and Motion with Respect to Cause” at the conference The Mechanization of Geometry: from Antiquity to the Modern Age, at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, staged jointly by the MPIWG and the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa.
June 21, 2014: Presented paper “Leibniz on the relativity of motion”, to the Institute for History and Foundations of Science, Utrecht, Netherlands.
June 11, 2014: Submitted an article “Newton and Leibniz on the relativity of motion”, for the Oxford Handbook on Newton ed. Chris Smeenck and Eric Schliesser.
May 26, 2014: Commented on a paper by Adam Harmer at the CPA Annual Meeting, “Leibniz and Descartes Against Material Monism”, and chaired a session by on a paper by Gülberk Koç on “Bertand Russell’s Neutral Monism”.
May 24, 2014: Took part in a plenary session (author-meets-critics) at the CSHPS Annual Meeting, presenting “Comments on Lee Smolin’s Time Reborn”.
March 2014: Corrected proofs for my book Leibniz, forthcoming from Polity Press in August (UK & Australia) and October (Canada and US).
March 2014: Visited the University of Lethbridge as external reviewer for their MA programs.
January-April 2014: worked in the Russell Archives with Nicholas Griffin and Jolen Galaugher on three co-authored articles detailing Russell’s marginalia on his copies of Gerhardt’s editions of Leibniz’s works.March 1: TheSep 23, 2021 at 2:24 PM
Books by RTWA
Leibniz on Time, Space, and Relativity
December 16, 2021
The Reality of Time Flow: Local Becoming in Modern Physics November 30, 2021
Leibniz
Sept. 9 2014
The Labyrinth of the Continuum
Sept. 3 2013
Monads, Composition, and Force
Nov. 14 2018
An Introduction to Logic
Nov. 30 2016
Natural Deduction
May 25th, 2011