PhD Student, MacMaster University and University Paris Cité, Laboratoire SPHere UMR 7219
Contact : elawanij@mcmaster.ca
PhD Thesis "Leibniz’s Science of Estimation"
Thesis supervisors: David Rabouin (CNRS) and Richard Arthur (McMaster University)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
My PhD thesis consists in an in-depth study of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’ conception of the measurement of quantity as it is displayed in his 1690s science of estimation (Scientia Aestimandi). It puts it in the wider context of the contemporaneous General sciences of quantity and of classical and early-modern conceptions of measurement. I lay out some of the motivations Leibniz had in coming out with a systematic and elaborated conception of the measurement of quantity at the time. My thesis also focuses on the actual content of the science of estimation. It means to present some of the mathematical and philosophical peculiarities attached to the 1690s Leibnizian approach of quantity. I am especially interested in the conception of numbers and of the measurement of live force this approach forsters.
Right now, I am finishing a paper on Leibniz’s concept of real number along side with Dr. Filippo Costantini who is a postdoctoral Marie Curie fellow at the University of Venice.
We would like to defend eventually that this concept is akin to the contemporary coalgebraic approach to the continuum.
I also have interests in the role of symmetry in contemporary physics, especially in Noether’s theorem, and in the disputes between pluralists and non-pluralists over the justification of set-theoretic axioms.
PUBLICATION
(2023) Elawani, J. and Costantini, F. "De l’art général d’estimer la quantité à l’estimation de la force chez Leibniz" in Vorträge des
XI. Internationalen Leibniz-Kongresses, 31. Juli – 4. August 2023, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Deutschland, eds. Wenchao Li, Charlotte Wahl,
Sven Erdner, Bianca Carina Schwarze and Yue Dan. Hannover : Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Gesellschaft e.V., 2023-07
(2023) Elawani, J. and Lapointe, S. "Interpretation and the History of Philosophy. A Pragmatic Account" in Historiography and the Formation of Philosophical Canons, eds. Sandra LaPointe and Erich Reck. Abingdon: Routledge.
(2023) Elawani, J. Review of Dominique Pradelle, Intuition et idéalités. Phénoménologie des objets mathématiques, Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 2020, 552 pages in Philosophiques, Volume 50, numéro 1, printemps 2023.
Under Review
(2023) Elawani, J. and Costantini F. "The Art of Estimation and the Mathematization of Force in Leibniz"
(2023) Elawani, J. and Costantini F. "On the Method for Knowing how much of a Thing there is"
TALKS
2023: "De l’art général d’estimer la quantité à l’estimation de la force chez Leibniz" in collaboration with Filippo Costantini for the Leibniz-Kongress in Hanover on August 2.
2023: "La théorie de l’estime chez Leibniz for the workshop “Recherche sur les mathématiques de Leibniz : Quoi de neuf?” at l’Institut Poincaré on May 12.
2023 : "Leibniz’s theory of estimation: a (mathematical) reconstruction" in collaboration with Filippo Costantini for the Cambridge Workshop on Measurement on April 21.
2022: "Estimating quantity: the procedure for knowing how much of a thing there is" for the Princeton-Bucharest seminar in early-modern philosophy on November 1.
2022: "Leibniz’s Concept of Real numbers" in collaboration with Filippo Constantini for the seminar on Leibniz on Numbers, Mathematics and Physics on October 28 at McMaster.
2022: "Leibniz’s real measure argument: how considerations about the nature of quantity can help to settle a conflict in physics" on January 19 at SPHERE.
2021:
2020:
