Research

My primary current research project is an examination of Leibniz’s philosophy—both his theoretical and practical philosophy—from a systematic and developmental point of view. I hope to show that, throughout his career, Leibniz had been a system-builder who constructed philosophical systems according to certain methodological frameworks. In his early career, Leibniz’s philosophical methodology was heavily influenced by that of Hobbes. Around the late 1670s, Leibniz supplemented this early methodology with architectonic principles that describe the optimality of the current world. Both Leibniz’s early and mature philosophies can be fruitfully understood against their methodological contexts. The Leibniz papers listed below are all more or less connected with this research project.

In addition, I also have a serious interest in the philosophies of Hobbes and Spinoza and have some works in progress about them.

Publications

Journal Articles (email for drafts)

Leibniz as a Virtue Ethicist, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 109 (2024): 505–27

Law and Physics in Leibniz, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 62.1 (2024): 49–73

Hobbes’s Model of Refraction and Derivation of the Sine law, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 75 (2021): 323-348

Book Reviews

Richard Arthur et al. (ed. and trans.), Leibniz: Publications on Natural Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2023. Forthcoming in HOPOS.

Jeffrey McDonough. A Miracle Creed: The Principle of Optimality in Leibniz's Physics and Philosophy. Philosophy of Science, 90.4 (2023): 1013–16. [link]

Under Review

A paper on the pluralistic nature of Leibniz’s natural philosophy (R&R, Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy)