Nader El Bizri

Education

El-Bizri received a degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a PhD in philosophy from the New School of Social Research.

Academic positions

El-Bizri is a professor of philosophy and civilization studies at the American University of Beirut, where he is also an associate dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, and the director of the general education program. He was formerly a director of the civilization studies program at the AUB and the coordinator of Islamic studies, and also oversees the Anis Makdisi Program in Literature. He was previously a visiting professor of visual studies at the University of Lincoln and a principal lecturer (reader) in architecture. He was an affiliated senior research fellow in philosophy at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, and is general editor (and managing editor ex officio) of an Oxford University Press book series published in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, entitled: Epistles of the Brethren of Purity Series رسائل إخوان الصفاء . He was a co-manager of a joint project between the Institute of Ismaili Studies and the Institut Français du Proche Orient, formerly based in Damascus and now in Beirut.

El-Bizri was an affiliated research scholar in the department of history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge from 1999 to 2010, primarily lecturing on medieval Islamic sciences and philosophy. He has also been a visiting lecturer at the faculty of architecture at the University of Cambridge on Islamic architecture. He holds a Chercheur associé position in history of science and philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris (Denis-Diderot, Paris VII, UMR 7219, SPHERE) since 2006, and he was previously a lecturer in architecture at the University of Nottingham, and taught at Harvard University. He is a member of the Ordered Universe research team on mediaeval science that is supported by the British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), which is based at the University of Durham and Oxford University. El-Bizri is an elected member of the Steering Committee of the Société Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences et des Philosophies Arabes et Islamiques (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris).

Architectural career

El-Bizri has over twelve years of professional architectural design and consulting experience in offices and institutions in Geneva, London, Cambridge, New York, Boston and Beirut.

Writing, television

El-Bizri is co-editor of a book series in phenomenology (Springer, formerly Kluwer Academic Publishers; Dordrecht, Netherlands), and as section editor (Islam) of the Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions (SPRINGER, Dordrecht & Berlin). He is on the editorial boards of series and journals, such as the Cambridge University Press journal Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, Toposophia (series on philosophy and architecture; Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield), Institute of Ismaili Studies Texts and Translations Series (London: I. B. Tauris), the Encyclopaedia Islamica (Leiden: E. J. Brill), the Journal of World Philosophies (Indiana University Press), and the Fundamentals of Scientific Research at The Arab Organization for Translation in Beirut (linked to the Centre for Arab Unity Studies). He is the European representative of the Equipe d’Etude et de Recherche sur le Patrimoine Scientifique Arabe, which is part of the Lebanese Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. He has written for Al-Hayat.

El-Bizri has made several contributions to BBC radio and television cultural programs, including a discussion about the Persian philosopher Avicenna with Melvin Bragg and other guests on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time, and an interview with Jim Al-Khalili about Ibn al-Haytham for BBC Four's Science and Islam series.

Awards

El-Bizri has received several awards, including the Kuwait Prize 2014 from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences. He has been also ranked as one of the "Thought Leaders" in the Arab world via the Berggruen Institute and its various partners.

Ideas

El-Bizri's areas of expertise are in phenomenology, in Arabic Sciences and philosophy, and architectural humanities (architectural theory). He focuses mainly on theories of space/place and of perception, with a particular interest in classical optics and perspective Renaissance traditions. His interpretation of history of science and philosophy is guided by contemporary debates in epistemology and ontology (metaphysics).

El-Bizri composed commentaries on phenomenology and Martin Heidegger, He also developed an expertise in history of philosophy and science in Islamic civilisation, with a special focus on the traditions of polymaths like the optician and geometer Alhazen (al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham), the metaphysician and physician Avicenna (Abu 'Ali Ibn Sina), and the tenth-century encyclopaedist thinkers, the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa').

El-Bizri's interpretations of the history of the exact sciences in classical Islamic civilisation have been connected with the legacy of the mathematician, historian and philosopher of science: Roshdi Rashed (Emeritus; CNRS, Paris).

In recent studies that aim at "renewing the impetus of philosophical thinking in Islam", El-Bizri offers critical analyses of the conventions of methodology and historiography that dominate the mainstream academic and epistemic approaches in studying "Islamic philosophy" from "archival" standpoints, within Oriental and Mediaevalist Studies; arguing that these do not usually recognise the fact that "philosophy in Islam" can still be a living intellectual tradition, and that its renewal requires a radical reform in ontology, epistemology and cosmology within Islamic thought, which have primacy over the emphasis on theories of value, politics and law. This is also embodied in El-Bizri's interpretations of Avicenna (Ibn Sina) from the standpoint of Heidegger's critique of the history of metaphysics.

Books

As author or co-author

As editor