Walzer, Richard Rudolf

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WALZER, RICHARD RUDOLF

WALZER, RICHARD RUDOLF (1900–1975), scholar of Greek and Arabic philosophy. Born in Berlin, Walzer left Germany when Hitler came to power and, from 1933 to 1938, was lecturer in Greek philosophy at the University of Rome. He went to Oxford where he lectured in Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew philosophy. Walzer discovered much lost Greek material in Arabic philosophical writings, and contributed both to the understanding of Greek thought and of its use and development by medieval Islamic thinkers.

Walzer's publications include Magna Moralia und Aristotelische Ethik (1929); Aristotelis Dialogorum Fragmenta (1934, 19632); Studi su Al-Kindi (with H. Ritter and M. Guidi, 2 vols., 1938–40); Eraclito: Raccolta dei frammenti (1939); Al-Farabius: De Platonis Philosophia (with F. Rosenthal, 1943): translations of Galen, On Medical Experience (1944), and Galen on Jews and Christians (1949); and he edited Galeni Compendium Timaei Platonis (with P. Kraus, 1951), and Greek into Arabic: Essays on Islamic Philosophy (1962).

[Richard H. Popkin]

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