Biography
Tony Street did both his first degree in Asian Studies (Arabic), and his doctorate (Angels in Medieval Islamic Theology, 1989), at the Australian National University. He taught Arabic and Islamic studies at the ANU before coming to Cambridge in 1999. Among other positions, he has been Professeur Invité at the Centre d’Histoire des Sciences et des Philosophies Arabes et Médiévales, Paris 7 (twice, 2008 & 2012), and Mellon Sawyer Visiting Professor at Near Eastern Studies, Berkeley (2014); he will take up a Fellowship at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in 2019. He is on the editorial board of a number of journals, including History and Philosophy of Logic, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, and Oriens. He has served as Principal Investigator on numerous research grants, most notably Investigating Aristotelian Logic, East and West (AHRC, 2005‒2008) and Major issues and controversies of Arabic logic and philosophy of language (AHRC, 2011‒2014).
Research
Dr Street’s research interests focus on the intellectual history of the Islamic world through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE, a period of fruitful tension between Aristotelian philosophy and the Islamic sciences. He concentrates above all on the logical texts which developed through this period, and the reasons for their growing independence from the Aristotelian tradition. He has also worked on the new theological methods developed by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210) and his disciples. More broadly, he is interested in commentary traditions as vehicles for innovation, and the use of canon-formation to define cultural identity.
Publications
'Al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 1325) and the Early Reception of Kātibī's Shamsīya: Notes towards a study of the dynamics of post-Avicennan logical commentary,' Oriens 44 (2016): 1–35.
'Kātibī, Taḥtānī, and the Shamsiyya,' for The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy, edited by Khaled El-Rouayheb and Sabine Schmidtke (Oxford: OUP, 2016) pages 348–374.
'Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī (d. 1248) on the Conversion of Modal Propositions,' Oriens 42 (2014): pp. 454–513.
İslam Mantık Tarihi 750-1350 (History of Islamic Logic 750-1350) (Turkish anthology of 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005 below). Translated by H. Kuşlu. Istanbul: Klasik Press, 2013.
'Faẖraddīn ar-Rāzī's critique of Avicennan logic,' in U. Rudolph & D. Perler (eds), Logik und Theologie. Das Organon im arabischen und im lateinischen Mittelalter, Leiden: Brill, 2005, pp. 99–116.
'Arabic Logic,' for Greek, Arabic and Indian Logic, first volume in the Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Logic, edited by J. Woods & D. Gabbay, Dordrecht: New-Holland, 2004, pp. 523–596.
'An outline of Avicenna's syllogistic,' Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 84.2 (2002) pp. 129–160.
'Avicenna and Ṭūsī on the contradiction and conversion of the absolute,' Journal of the History and Philosophy of Logic 21.1 (2000) pp. 45–56.
Teaching and Supervisions
- Islamic Philosophy (C9 module)
- Arabic Philosophical Texts (C1d module)
Dr Street will be away from Cambridge for five of the seven terms beginning Easter Term 2018; although he is happy to receive applications for doctoral supervision in areas related to his research interests, any arrangement will have to involve joint supervision.
