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some
current projects
I am working on two
papers that address Newton’s blending of mathematics and empiricism in
his natural philosophy. One paper
will appear in The Oxford Handbook
of Newton, the other in a volume commemorating the 300th
anniversary of the General Scholium. I am also slowly but steadily making
progress on a book project that focuses on the interplay of mathematics,
metaphysics, and natural philosophy in the works of Descartes and Newton.
edited
collections
I served as guest
editor for a special 50th anniversary issue of The Southern Journal of Philosophy
dedicated to “Newton and Newtonianism,” which
appeared in September 2012. My Editor’s
Introduction offers a brief survey of the current
state of the art in Newton studies as well as an overview of the papers
that are collected in the issue.
Discourse on a New Method: Reinvigorating the Marriage of
History and Philosophy of Science, edited with Michael Dickson
(Open Court, 2010; ISBN: 978-0-8126-9662-2). This collection honors Michael Friedman’s influential work in history
and philosophy of science and includes twenty-six original papers, one of
which is Friedman’s book-length concluding essay, “Synthetic History
Reconsidered.” Reviews of the
volume recently appeared in NDPR and Philosophy in Review.
recent
and forthcoming papers
“Mediating between Past
and Present: Descartes, Newton, and Contemporary Structural Realism.”
Forthcoming in Philosophy and Its History: Aims and Methods in the Study
of Early Modern of Philosophy, edited by Mogens Laerke, Eric Schliesser, and Justin E. H. Smith (Oxford University Press,
2013).
“Observation and
Mathematics.” Forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth
Century, edited by Peter Anstey (Oxford University Press, 2013).
“Kant and Newton on the
A Priori Necessity of Geometry.” Forthcoming in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2012.10.007).
“Newton and Proclus:
Geometry, Imagination, and Knowing Space.” The Southern
Journal of Philosophy (September 2012), 50 (3): 389-413.
“Locke’s Qualified
Embrace of Newton’s Principia.”
In Interpreting Newton: Critical Essays, edited by Andrew Janiak and Eric Schliesser (Cambridge
University Press, 2012), pp. 48-68.
“Descartes’ Mathematics.” In The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011 edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/descartes-mathematics/>.
“Kant on the
Imagination and Geometrical Certainty.” Perspectives
on Science (2010) 18 (4): 409-431.
“The Intelligibility of
Motion and Construction: Descartes’ Early Mathematics and Metaphysics,
1619-1637.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
(2009) 40: 119-130.
recent
book reviews
Essay review of Steffen
Ducheyne, “The main Business of natural Philosophy”: Isaac Newton’s
Natural-philosophical Methodology (Springer, 2012), and William L.
Harper, Isaac Newton’s Scientific Method: Turning Data into
Evidence about Gravity and Cosmology (Oxford University Press,
2012). Forthcoming (fall 2013) in HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society of
History and Philosophy of Science.
Review of Peter Machamer and J.E.
McGuire, Descartes’
Changing Mind (Princeton University Press, 2009). HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society of
History and Philosophy of Science (2011) 1(1): 162-165.
Review of Niccolň Guicciardini, Isaac Newton on Mathematical Certainty and Method
(The MIT Press, 2009). The Canadian
Journal of History (2010) 45: 614-617.
recent
talks
“Kant and Newton on the
a priori necessity of geometry.” German Philosophy Workshop, Department of Philosophy,
University of Chicago, 12 April 2013.
The poster for the two University of Chicago
talks was designed by Gilad Nir.
“Newton’s Mathematics
and Empiricism.” Early Modern Philosophy Workshop, Department of
Philosophy, University of Chicago, 11 April 2013; The Rotman
Institute of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario, 22 March
2013.
“Descartes’
Mathematical Physics: A Reassessment.”
Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, 11
January 2013; Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, 14 September 2012.
“Newton and Proclus: Understanding
the Geometry of Absolute Space.” Center for Philosophy of Science,
University of Pittsburgh, 24 January 2012.
“Descartes, Newton, and
the Mathematical Character of Natural Philosophy.” Workshop on
“Knowledge, Representation, and Proof in the Modern Era,” Notre Dame
University, South Bend, IN, 3 November 2011. A previous version of this
paper was delivered as a Dean’s lecture at St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM, 22
October 2010.
“Difference,
Disunity, and the Dialogue between Past and Present.” Philosophy and Its History: A Workshop
on Methods, Aims, and New Directions in the Scholarship of Early Modern
Philosophy, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, 29-30 October
2011
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