Current Projects

I'm working on a couple of things at the moment.

• First, there's a piece on Leibniz's account of infinitesimal magnitudes as fictional entities. The latest draft is available here.
• Second, there's a paper on Hobbes's conception of rigorous mathematical demonstration, and the conflict between that theory and his actual mathematical practice.

I'm working on some other stuff at the moment as well, and should get it to the website sometime in the fairly near future.

The wonderful world of research

Here you'll find a variety of current and recently completed research projects. The links on the left hand side are to stuff that has yet to appear in print -- the bleeding edge of my research program, as it were. Over here we have stuff that's actually been edited by a competent professional, or at least stuff that's been out in public for a while. Among the highlights, we have:

• A paper on Descartes, Pascal, and an interesting curve known as the cycloid. This is scheduled to appear in Perspectives on Science.
• An essay on George Berkeley's critique of the calculus that will appear in a volume on Berkeley's philosophy.
• A paper on Hobbes's conception of scientia or demonstrative knowledge, slated to appear in a volume on early modern conceptions of scientia.
• A paper on Hobbes's mechanics that appeared in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy.
• A review symposium on the recent book John Pell and his correspondence with Sir Charles Cavendish by Noel Malcolm and Jacqueline Stedall.
• A paper from Perspectives on Science that deals with Hobbes and Galileo and the connection between their approach to natural philosophy.
• A paper on Hobbes's controversy with John Wallis that tries to put the whole thing in some reasonable context. This was presented a while back at a meeting in Berlin on "public debates" and controversies.
• I've also participated in a number of debates on atheism, and have gathered some recent material relevant to atheism on this page.