The formation of a scholar: the stages on my way

Abstract

Richard Walzer was born in Germany in 1900. After studying at the University of Berlin he taught philosophy there as a Privatdozent. He married Sofie, daughter of the well-known art publisher Bruno Cassirer, and in 1933, when the advent of Hitler to power began to create difficulties, they went to Rome, where he taught and pursued research in classical and Islamic philosophy, until once more discrimination against Jews compelled them to leave. They came to Oxford, where Richard became lecturer (in 1945) and later Reader (in 1960) in Arabic and Greek philosophy. He was a Fellow of St Catherine's College from 1962 until his retirement in 1970, and then an Emeritus Fellow. From 1956 he was a Fellow of the British Academy. In spite of the disturbances to his life and career caused by the political events of his time, he was able to finish and publish a considerable amount of research: editions of works by Heraclitus and Aristotle, two volumes of the Plato Arabus, edited with Franz Rosenthal and Paul Kraus respectively, two editions of books by Galen (On Medical Experience and On Jews and Christians), a volume of essays on the history of Arabic philosophy (Greek into Arabic), and a series of lectures on its earlier development, given at the College de France (L'eveil de la philosophie islamique). His major work, an edition and translation of al-Farabi's al-Mad7na al-fddila, with a commentary, was published after his death as Al-Farabi on the Perfect State. There is a bibliography of his published works in the Festschrift which was presented to him on his 70th birthday: Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, edited by S.M. Stern, A. Hourani and V. Brown (Oxford, Bruno Cassirer, 1972). A brief biography and an assessment of his work, written by D.A. Russell, appeared in the Proceedings of the British Academy, 73 (1987), 705-710. The talk which is here published was given to the Near East History Group at Oxford in March 1967. This was a small group of teachers of Islamic and Middle Eastern subjects which met regularly to discuss books and topics in Islamic history and to arrange occasional conferences. We invited Richard to talk to us about the way in which he became an Islamic scholar, and I have a memory of a dimly-lit room in All Souls' College (probably Samuel Stern's room), and of Richard holding his typescript very close to his eyes and reading from it in a firm, clear voice which expressed something of the deep feelings which the memory of his life and of his teachers aroused in him. I came across the typescript recently. He must have sent it to me; it is marked 'Please return some time', but it is clear that I never returned it. I think it is worth publishing now, a quarter of a century later, not only because it will bring back a memory of Richard Walzer to those who knew him, but also because it conveys, expressed in moving language, two lessons of permanent value. One of them is that of the importance of the connection between Greek and Islamic