Professor Tony Street

Professor of Medieval Arabic Philosophy, Centre for the History of Philosophy
BA (Hons), PhD (ANU)

Email: tony.street@nd.edu.au

  • Biography

    Tony Street is Professor of Medieval Arabic Philosophy at the Notre Dame Centre for the History of Philosophy. Before joining Notre Dame he was Assistant Director of Research in Islamic Studies at Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity.

    He is Team Leader for the Arabic Rational Sciences and Hebrew teams of the European Research Council Synergy Grant project, Logic in Reverse Redux. Illegitimate Argumentative Moves in the Arabic, Byzantine, Hebrew and Latin Medieval Traditions (2025-31).

    Tony’s research focusses on the intellectual history of the Islamic world, particularly through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE. His books include The Rules of Logic by Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī (New York University Press).

    The ERC Synergy teams he is currently working with will produce a historical and analytical study of argumentative practices in the medieval Arabic, Greek East, Hebrew, and Latin West traditions.

    Personal website

  • Research Expertise and Supervision

    • Intellectual history of the Islamicate world
    • Medieval Muslim commentary traditions
    • Medieval Arabic logic

  • Books

    • Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī’s al-Risālah al-Shamsiyyah: An Edition and Translation with Commentary. New York University Press, 2024.
    • İslam Mantık Tarihi 750–1350 (History of Islamic Logic 750–1350), translated by H. Kuşlu. Klasik Press, 2013.
    • The Unity of Science in the Arabic Tradition: Science, Logic, Epistemology and their Interactions, edited with Shahid Rahman and Hassan Tahiri. Springer, 2008.
    • Islam: Essays in Scripture, Thought and Society. A festschrift for A. H. Johns, edited with P. G. Riddell. Brill, 1997.

  • Book chapters

    • “Gelenbevī’s Analysis of a Fallacious Argument in the Burhān” (with Behnam Zolghadr), in Ismā’īl Gelenbevī: The Life, Works, and Thought of an 18th Century Ottoman Polymath, ed. Yasser Qureshy (De Gruyter: 2026)
    • “Ibn Sīnā. 4.9 Logik, in 11. und 12. Jahrhundert: Zentrale und östliche Gebiete,” vol.2/1 of Philosophie in der islamischen Welt, ed. Ulrich Rudolph (Schwabe, 2021), 108–38
    • “The Reception of Pointers 1.6 in Thirteenth-Century Logic: On the Expression’s Signification of Meaning,” in Philosophy and Language in the Islamic World, ed. Nadja Germann and Mostafa Najafi (De Gruyter, 2020):101–28
    • “Kātibī, Taḥtānī, and the Shamsiyya,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Khaled El-Rouayheb and Sabine Schmidtke (Oxford University Press, 2016), 348–74
    • “Avicenna on the Syllogism,” in Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays, ed. P. Adamson (Cambridge University Press), 48–70
    • “Medieval and Modern Interpretations of Avicenna’s Modal Syllogistic,” in Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture and Religion, ed. D. Reisman and F. Opwis (Brill, 2011) 233–55
    • “Suhrawardī on Modal Syllogisms,” in Islamic Thought in the Middle Ages: Studies in Text, Translation and Transmission in Honour of Hans Daiber, ed. Anna Akasoy and Wim Raven (Brill, 2008b), 163–78
    • “Rescher on Arabic logic,” in Rescher Studies, ed. R. Almeder (Ontos, 2008), 309–24
    • “Faḫraddīn ar-Rāzī’s critique of Avicennan logic,” in Logik und Theologie. Das Organon im arabischen und im lateinischen Mittelalter, ed. U. Rudolph and D. Perler (Brill, 2005), 99–116
    • “Logic,” in The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Philosophy, ed. R. Taylor and P. Adamson (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 247–65
    • “Arabic Logic,” in Greek, Arabic and Indian Logic, first volume in the Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Logic, ed. J. Woods and D. Gabbay (Elsevier, 2004), 523–96
    • “Concerning the life and works of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,” in Islam: Essays in Scripture, Thought and Society, ed. Riddell and Street (Brill, 1997), 135–46

  • Journal articles and proceedings

    • “A thirteenth-century debate about Avicenna’s definitions of differentia,” The Monist 108 (2025): 306–17
    • “Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī and the Traditions of Arabic Logic,” Studia graeco-arabica 11 (2021): 41–66
    • “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): 267–300
    • “Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī (d. 1248) on the Conversion of Modal Propositions,” Oriens 42 (2014): 454–513
    • “Avicenna’s Twenty Questions on Logic: Preliminary notes for further work,” Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale 21 (2010): 97–111
    • “Appendix: Readings of the Subject Term,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 20 (2010): 119–24
    • “Khwāja Naṣīr, naqād andīsha-i Ibn Sīnā dar bāra-i adawāt manṭiqī,” Farhang. Quarterly Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies 20, no. 61–62 (2007): 103–25. Persian translation by Ḥujjatī of 1995
    • “Aks wa-naqīḍ muṭlaqāt az dīdigāh-i Ibn Sīnā wa-Khwāja Naṣīr Ṭūsī.” Farhang. Quarterly Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies 20, no. 61–62 (2007): 127–45. Persian translation by Zakyāyī of 2000a
    • “İbn Sina Sonrasi Bir Kiyas Tarihine Doğru: Rescher’in Arap Modal Mantiği İle İlgili Çalişmalari Üzerine Notlar,” Sakarya Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 8 (2006): 197–218. Turkish translation by İbrahim Çapak of 2000b
    • “An outline of Avicenna’s syllogistic,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 84, no. 2 (2002): 129–60
    • “‘The eminent later scholar’ in Avicenna’s Book of the Syllogism,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 11, no. 2 (2001): 205–18
    • “Avicenna and Ṭūsī on the contradiction and conversion of the absolute,” Journal of the History and Philosophy of Logic 21, no. 1 (2000a): 45–56
    • “Toward a history of syllogistic after Avicenna: Notes on Rescher’s studies on Arabic modal logic,” Journal of Islamic Studies 11, no. 2 (2000b): 209–28
    • “On studying medieval Arabic logic” (a review article of J. Lameer’s Al-Fārābī and Aristotelian syllogistics, Brill, 1994), Journal of the American Oriental Society 117, no. 3 (1997): 536–41
    • “Ṭūsī on Avicenna’s logical connectives,” Journal of the History and Philosophy of Logic 16, no. 2 (1995): 257–68
    • “Medieval Islamic doctrine on the angels: the writings of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,” Parergon 9, no. 2 (1991): 111–27

  • Professional Affiliations

    Editorial boards

    • Logic, Argumentation and Reasoning: Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences (Springer) 2019-
    • Logic, Epistemology and the Unity of Science (Springer) 2019-
    • Oriens 2014-
    • History and Philosophy of Logic 2010-
    • Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 2008-

  • Awards

    • Fellow, Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem, 2019
    • Mellon Sawyer Visiting Professor, Berkeley, 2014
    • Professeur Invité, Paris 7, 2008, 2012

  • Other

    Externally funded projects

    • Logic in Reverse Redux. Illegitimate Argumentative Moves in the Arabic, Byzantine, Hebrew and Latin Medieval Traditions. 2025–31. Funded by a €9.97 million ($17.7 million AUD) European Research Council Synergy Grant.
    • Towards a Constructive and Methodological Apparatus for Islamic Philosophical Theology. 2022–25. Funded by a £201,865 John Templeton Foundation grant.
    • Major issues and controversies of Arabic logic and philosophy of language. 2011–14. Funded by a £51,494 British Arts and Humanities Research Council grant.
    • Investigating Aristotelian Logic, East and West. 2005–8. Funded by a £259,952 British Arts and Humanities Research Council grant.

    Encyclopaedia Entries

    • “Definition,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edition (Brill, 2014), 85–89
    • “Arabic Philosophy of Language and Logic,” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2008, 2013), 69 pages
    • “Arabic syllogism,” “Islamic/Arabic logic,” and “Islamic Aristotelianism,” in Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization and Religion, ed. I. R. Netton (Routledge, 2007), 61–63, 321–23, 318–20
    • “Logic in the Islamic World: Addendum,” in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. D. M. Borchert, 2nd edition (Macmillan: 2005), vol. 5, 421

    Research Grants

    • ·European Research Council Synergy Grant; Team Leader (PI at time of award) for Arabic Rational Sciences and Hebrew Teams, ‘Logic in Reverse Redux. Illegitimate Argumentative Moves in the Arabic, Byzantine, Hebrew and Latin Medieval Traditions’, Team grant £1.8 million of total Synergy grant of €9.97 million ($17.7 million AUD), 2025–31.
    • John Templeton Foundation Grant, ‘Towards a Constructive and Methodological Apparatus for Islamic Philosophical Theology’, £201,865, 2022–25.
    • British Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant, ‘Major issues and controversies of Arabic logic and philosophy of language’, £51,494, 2011–14.
    • British Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant , ‘Investigating Aristotelian Logic, East and West,’ £259,952, 2005–8.