Paul Moraux

Paul Moraux (born January 14, 1919 in Oizy ; † September 26, 1985 in Berlin ) was a Belgian classical philologist who was professor at the Free University of Berlin from 1959 to 1984 .

Life

Paul Moraux studied classical philology and philosophy at the University of Liege in Marcel De Corte and Armand Delatte and was in 1942 with a thesis on the psychology of the peripatetic philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias doctorate . He achieved his habilitation in 1948 at the University of Geneva . A year later he went to the University of Friborg as a professor with a teaching position . From 1950 to 1955 he taught and researched as a visiting professor at the Free University of Berlin. He then held the chair for Classical Philology at the University of Istanbul before returning to the Free University of Berlin in 1959, initially as an associate professor. After Georg Rohde's death , he was appointed full professor in 1961.

Moraux remained active in Berlin until the end of his life. His lifelong preoccupation with the philosopher Aristotle led to the founding of the Aristotle Archive in 1965 , which is still located at the Free University today. Dieter Harlfinger , Diether Reinsch and Jürgen Wiesner were among his collaborators at the Aristotle Archive . At the Symposium Aristotelicum , of which he was a founding member, Moraux moved up to the board in 1968. In this capacity he organized the ninth triennial symposium of the community in Berlin (1981). He was also a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute and the Turkish Historical Society . For his services he was awarded an honorary doctorate on December 3, 1983 by the Paris Sorbonne .

After his retirement in the spring of 1984, Moraux continued to take part in research colloquia and pushed ahead with his research. During a visit to Oizy, the town of his birth, in August 1985, he developed heart problems that required an operation. On the night after the unsuccessful operation, however, he died surprisingly at the age of 66. Moraux was buried in the Zehlendorf forest cemetery in Berlin. The Free University organized a memorial service in his honor on July 2, 1986.

Paul Moraux occupied himself with the philosophy of Aristotle all his life. He published 17 monographs on him and over 100 essays and contributions to compilations. His work can be divided into three areas: the natural philosophy of Aristotle, the transmission history of his writings in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, and the influence of Aristotelian philosophy on ancient philosophy as a whole. His two largest projects were Aristotelianism among the Greeks , in which Moraux traces the history and impact of the Aristotelian writings, and a list of all surviving manuscripts under the title Aristotle Graecus . With the support of the university and the German Research Foundation , Moraux put together a microfilm collection of over 1,000 manuscripts that formed the basis of the Aristotle archive. The first volume of Aristotle Graecus appeared in 1976 and listed the manuscripts in the cities from A to L. The second volume has not appeared. Moraux was also unable to complete the multi-volume work Aristotelianism among the Greeks : Volumes 1 and 2 appeared in 1973 and 1984, the third volume remained an unfinished manuscript and was only published in 2001 by Jürgen Wiesner.

literature

• Rudolf Kassel : Paul Moraux (1919–1985) . In: Berliner Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft e. V. Yearbook 1985, pp. 44-50.
• Tilman Krischer : Paul Moraux (1919–1985) . In: Eikasmós . Volume 4, 1993, pp. 275-276.
• Jürgen Wiesner: Paul Moraux † . In: Gnomon . Volume 60, 1988, pp. 380-383 (with picture).

Web links

• Literature by and about Paul Moraux in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wilt Aden Schröder : Biogram of Paul Moraux in the scholarly historical prosopography of the Teuchos Center

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 637.
2. ↑ Wiesner (1988) 382.