Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Affiliated Research Scholars

Nader El-Bizri

Nader El-Bizri

  • Research Associate in Philosophy at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London
  • Chercheur Associé, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
  • Co-Editor of the Kluwer Academic Publishers (Springer) book series on 'Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology'
  • General Editor of the Oxford University Press book series Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (published by OUP in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies)
  • Section Editor (Islam), Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions (Springer)
  • Visiting Professor (2007-2010), School of Architecture, University of Lincoln
  • Member of the editorial boards of Arabic Sciences and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press), Fundamentals of Scientific Knowledge (Arab Organization for Translation, Beirut), Ismaili Texts and Translations Series (I.B. Tauris, London), Toposophia (Lexington Books, Maryland), and Encyclopaedia Islamica (E.J. Brill, Leiden)

Research interests: Arabic sciences and philosophy; phenomenology; philosophical and architectural theories of space and perception.

Selected publications

  • The Phenomenological Quest Between Avicenna and Heidegger (Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications, SUNY, 2000)
  • 'Avicenna and Essentialism', Review of Metaphysics 54 (2001), 753-778
  • 'Qui-êtes vous Khôra?: Receiving Plato's Timaeus', Existentia Meletai-Sophias 11 (2001), 473-490
  • 'A Phenomenological Account of the Ontological Problem of Space', Existentia Meletai-Sophias 12 (2002), 345-364
  • 'Avicenna's De Anima Between Aristotle and Husserl', in The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), 67-89
  • 'Religion and Measure', Phenomenological Inquiry 27 (2003), 128-155
  • 'Variations autour de la notion d'expérience dans la pensée arabe', in L'expérience, collection les mots du monde, sous la direction de N. Tazi, traduit par M. Saint-Upéry (Paris: Éditions la Découverte, 2004), 39-58
  • 'Ontopoièsis and the Interpretation of Plato's Khôra', Analecta Husserliana 83 (2004), 25-45
  • 'On kai khôra: Situating Heidegger between the Sophist and the Timaeus', Studia Phaenomenologica 4 (2004), 73-98
  • 'La perception de la profondeur: Alhazen, Berkeley et Merleau-Ponty', Oriens-Occidens: Cahiers du centre d'histoire des sciences et des philosophies arabes et médiévales, C.N.R.S. 5 (2004), 171-184
  • 'A Philosophical Perspective on Alhazen's Optics', Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 15 (2005), 189-218
  • 'The Conceptions of Nature in Arabic Thought', in Nature (Keywords Series), ed. Nadia Tazi (New York: Other Press, 2005), 63-92
  • 'Being and Necessity: A Phenomenological Investigation of Avicenna's Metaphysics and Cosmology', in Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2006), 243-261
  • 'Uneasy Meditations following Levinas', Studia Phaenomenologica 6 (2006), 293-315
  • 'Being-towards-death: on Martyrdom and Islam', Cristianesimo nella storia 27 (2006), 249-279
  • 'In Defence of the Sovereignty of Philosophy: al-Baghdadi's Critique of Ibn al-Haytham's Geometrisation of Place', Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 17 (2007), 57-80
  • 'Imagination and Architectural Representations', in From Models to Drawings: Imagination and Representation in Architecture, eds. Marco Frascari, Jonathan Hale, Bradley Starkey (London: Routledge, 2007), 34-42
  • 'Some Phenomenological and Classical Corollaries on Time', in Timing and Temporality in Islamic Philosophy and Phenomenology of Life, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2007), 137-155
  • 'Préface', in Ibn Taymiyya, Les Saints du Mont Liban: Absence, jihâd et spiritualité, entre la montagne et la cité. Cinq fetwas traduits de l'arabe, introduits et annotés par Yahya Michot (Beyrouth – Paris: Les éditions Albouraq – La Librairie de l'Orient, 2007), VII-XVIII
  • 'God: essence and attributes', in The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, ed. Tim Winter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 121-140
  • 'Le problème de l'espace: approches optique, géométrique et phénoménologique', in Oggetto e spazio. Fenomenologia dell'oggetto, forma e cosa dai secoli XIII-XIV ai post-cartesiani, eds. Graziella Federici Vescovini and Orsola Rignani. Micrologus Library 24 (Firenze: SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2008), 59-70
  • 'Hermeneutics and Tradition: Re-gathering the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity', in Islam ve Klasik, ed. Sami Erdem. Klasik 44 (Istanbul: Bilim ve Sanat Vakfi, 2008), 339-360
  • Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. The Ikhwan al-Safa' and their Rasa'il: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2008). Editor of the book, and Contributor of the 'Prologue', 1-32, and of Chapter 7: 'Epistolary Prolegomena: On Arithmetic and Geometry', 180-213
  • Revision of the English translation of Khwārizmī's Kitāb al-Jabr wa-al-muqābala, in: Roshdi Rashed, Al-Khwārizmī: The Beginnings of Algebra (London–Beirut: Saqi, 2009), 81-376
  • 'Foreword', in Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. The Case of the Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn. An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistle 22, ed. trans. Lenn E. Goodman and Richard McGregor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2009), XVII-XXV
  • 'Ibn al-Haytham et le problème de la couleur', Oriens-Occidens: Cahiers du centre d'histoire des sciences et des philosophies arabes et médiévales, C.N.R.S. 7 (2009), 201-226
  • 'Creative inspirations or intellectual impasses? Reflections on relationships between architecture and the humanities', in The Humanities in Architectural Design: A Contemporary and Historical Perspective, eds. Soumyen Bandyopadhyay, Jane Lomholt, Nicholas Temple and Renée Tobe (London: Routledge, 2010), 123-135
  • 'The Labyrinth of Philosophy in Islam', Comparative Philosophy 1.2 (2010), 3-23
  • 'Al-Sīnawiyya wa-naqd Hāydighir li-tārīkh al-mītāfīzīqā', al-Maĥajja 21 (2010), 119-140
  • 'Corollaries on Space and Time in Arabic Sciences and Philosophy', in Chrono-Topologies: Hybrid Spatialities and Multiple Temporalities, ed. Leslie Kavanaugh (Amestredam: Rodopi Press, 2010), 63-78
  • 'Classical Optics and the Perspectiva Traditions Leading to the Renaissance', in Renaissance Theories of Vision, eds. Charles Carman and John Hendrix (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 11-30
  • 'Phenomenological Directives on Reason and Spirit: Rational Discourses and Spiritual Inspirations', in Reason and Spirit, and the Sacral in the New Enlightenment, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht-Berlin: Springer, 2011), 185-193
  • 'The Groundbreaking Physics of Averroes', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42 (2011), 210-214
  • 'Ibn Sīnā's Ontology and the Question of Being', Ishrāq: Islamic Philosophy Yearbook 2 (2011), 222-237
  • 'Being at Home among Things: Heidegger's Reflections on Dwelling', Environment, Space, Place 3 (2011), 47-71
  • Edited the translation of Roshdi Rashed's Founding Figures and Commentators in Arabic Mathematics: A History of Arabic Sciences and Mathematics, Vol. 1, trans. R. Wareham with C. Allen and M. Barany (London: Routledge, 2011)
  • 'The Conceptual Bearings of the Intercultural Role of Architecture', in The Cultural Role of Architecture: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives, eds. Paul Emmons, John Henrix and Jane Lomholt (London: Routledge, 2012), 199-207

Nader El-Bizri's page at the Institute of Ismaili Studies