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Foils for Newton: Comments on Howard SteinIn Phillip Bricker & R. I. G. Hughes (eds.), Philosophical Perspectives on Newtonian Science, Mit Press. pp. 49--56. 1990.
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12The Labyrinth of the Continuum - Writings on the Continuum Problem 1672-1686 (edited book)Yale University Press. 2013.This book gathers together for the first time an important body of texts written between 1672 and 1686 by the great German philosopher and polymath Gottfried Leibniz. These writings, most of them previously untranslated, represent Leibniz's sustained attempt on a problem whose solution was crucial to the development of his thought, that of the composition of the continuum. The volume begins with excerpts from Leibniz's Paris writings, in which he tackles such problems as whether the infinite div…Read more
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Zenonism as a source for the monads in the philosophy of Gottfried W. Leibniz: A response to Paolo RossiRivista di Storia Della Filosofia 58 (2): 335-340. 2003.
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98Book Review:Quantum Mechanics, a Half Century Later J.L. Lopes, M. Paty (review)Philosophy of Science 48 (1): 156-. 1981.
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39Review of T emporal Relations and Temporal Becoming (review)Philosophy of Science 54 (1): 142-. 1987.
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189In this paper I try to sort out a tangle of issues regarding time, inertia, proper time and the so-called “clock hypothesis” raised by Harvey Brown's discussion of them in his recent book, Physical Relativity. I attempt to clarify the connection between time and inertia, as well as the deficiencies in Newton's “derivation” of Corollary 5, by giving a group theoretic treatment original with J.-P. Provost. This shows how both the Galilei and Lorentz transformations may be derived from the relativi…Read more
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235Space and relativity in Newton and LeibnizBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (1): 219-240. 1994.In this paper I challenge the usual interpretations of Newton's and Leibniz's views on the nature of space and the relativity of motion. Newton's ‘relative space’ is not a reference frame; and Leibniz did not regard space as defined with respect to actual enduring bodies. Newton did not subscribe to the relativity of intertial motions; whereas Leibniz believed no body to be at rest, and Newton's absolute motion to be a useful fiction. A more accurate rendering of the opposition between them, I a…Read more
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130The Enigma of Leibniz's AtomismIn Daniel Garber & Steven M. Nadler (eds.), Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy Volume 1, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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13Virtual Processes and Quantum Tunnelling as FictionsScience & Education 21 (10): 1461-1473. 2012.
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184In the transition to Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity (SR), certain concepts that had previously been thought to be univocal or absolute properties of systems turn out not to be. For instance, mass bifurcates into (i) the relativistically invariant proper mass m0, and (ii) the mass relative to an inertial frame in which it is moving at a speed v = βc, its relative mass m, whose quantity is a factor γ = (1 – β2) -1/2 times the proper mass, m = γm0.
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79The remarkable fecundity of Leibniz's work on infinite seriesAnnals of Science 63 (2): 221-225. 2006.
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Russell's Conundrum: on the Relation of Leibniz's Monads to the Continuum in An Intimate Relation. Studies in the History and Philosophy of ScienceBoston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 116 171-201. 1989.
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58Review of Andreas blank, Leibniz: Metaphilosophy and Metaphysics 1666-1686, (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (5). 2006.
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144During the last hundred years the notion of time flow has been held in low esteem by philosophers of science. Since the metaphor depends heavily on the analogy with motion, criticisms of time flow have either attacked the analogy as poorly founded, or else argued by analogy from a “static” conception of motion. Thus (1) Bertrand Russell argued that just as motion can be conceived as existence at successive places at successive times without commitment to a state of motion at an instant, so durat…Read more
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22Russell's Leibniz NotebookRussell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 37 (1). 2017.In preparation for his lectures on Leibniz delivered in Cambridge in Lent Term 1899, Russell started in the summer of 1898 to keep notes on writings by and about Leibniz in a large notebook of the type he commonly used for notetaking at this time. This article prints, with annotation, all the material on Leibniz in that notebook.
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155Presupposition, Aggregation, and Leibniz’s Argument for a Plurality of SubstancesThe Leibniz Review 21 91-115. 2011.This paper consists in a study of Leibniz’s argument for the infinite plurality of substances, versions of which recur throughout his mature corpus. It goes roughly as follows: since every body is actually divided into further bodies, it is therefore not a unity but an infinite aggregate; the reality of an aggregate, however, reduces to the reality of the unities it presupposes; the reality of body, therefore, entails an actual infinity of constituent unities everywhere in it. I argue that this …Read more
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16Review of Andrew Janiak, Newton as Philosopher (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (1). 2009.
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42This paper consists in an exposition of a proof Newton gave in 1666 of the parallelogram law for compounding velocities, and an examination of its implications for understanding his treatment of motion resulting from a continuously acting force in the Principia. I argue that the “moments” invoked in the fluxional proof of the vector resolution and composition of velocities are “virtual times”, a device allowing Newton to represent motions by the linear displacements produced in such a time; the …Read more
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28Niccolò Guicciardini, Isaac Newton on Mathematical Certainty and Method. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2009. Pp. xxiii + 422. ISBN 978-0-262-01317-8. $55.00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 44 (1): 122-124. 2011.
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62In lively and readable prose, Arthur presents a new approach to the study of logic, one that seeks to integrate methods of argument analysis developed in modern “informal logic” with natural deduction techniques. The dry bones of logic are given flesh by unusual attention to the history of the subject, from Pythagoras, the Stoics, and Indian Buddhist logic, through Lewis Carroll, Venn, and Boole, to Russell, Frege, and Monty Python. A previous edition of this book appeared under the title _Natur…Read more
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122Newton's fluxions and equably flowing timeStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 26 (2): 323-351. 1995.
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7Mathematischer, naturwissenschaftlicher und technischer Briefwechsel. Volume 4: Juli 1683-1690. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (review)Isis 88 (2): 340-341. 1997.
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33Richard Arthur’s _Natural Deduction_ provides a wide-ranging introduction to logic. In lively and readable prose, Arthur presents a new approach to the study of logic, one that seeks to integrate methods of argument analysis developed in modern “informal logic” with natural deduction techniques. The dry bones of logic are given flesh by unusual attention to the history of the subject, from Pythagoras, the Stoics, and Indian Buddhist logic, through Lewis Carroll, Venn, and Boole, to Russell, Freg…Read more
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187In Minkowski spacetime, because of the relativity of simultaneity to the inertial frame chosen, there is no unique world-at-an-instant. Thus the classical view that there is a unique set of events existing now in a three dimensional space cannot be sustained. The two solutions most often advanced are that the four-dimensional structure of events and processes is alone real, and that becoming present is not an objective part of reality; and that present existence is not an absolute notion, but is…Read more
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13Marginalia in Russell's Copy of Gerhardt's Edition of Leibniz's Philosophische SchriftenRussell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 37 (1). 2017.Russell’s most important source for his book on Leibniz was C. I. Gerhardt’s seven-volume Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Russell heavily annotated his copy of this important edition of Leibniz’s works. The present paper records all Russell’s marginalia, with the exception of passages marked merely by vertical lines in the margin, and provides explanatory commentary.
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15Monads, Composition, and Force: Ariadnean Threads Through Leibniz's LabyrinthOxford University Press. 2018.In this new work, Richard T. W. Arthur offers a fresh interpretation of Leibniz's theory of substance. He goes against a long trend of idealistic interpretations of Leibniz's thought by instead taking seriously Leibniz's claim of introducing monads to solve the problem of the composition of matter and motion.
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19Moore's Notes on Leibniz LecturesRussell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 37 (1). 2017.G. E. Moore attended Russell’s lectures on Leibniz in 1899 and kept detailed notes which have been preserved among his papers. The present article prints his notes in their entirety with annotations.