Hans-Georg Gadamer

Hans-Georg Gadamer
Wassili Lepanto and Hans-Georg Gadamer, c. 2000
Born	(1900-02-11)February 11, 1900 Marburg, German Empire
Died	March 13, 2002(2002-03-13) (aged 102) Heidelberg, Germany
Alma mater	University of Breslau University of Marburg (PhD, 1922)
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy Hermeneutics Ontological hermeneutics Hermeneutic phenomenology
Institutions	University of Marburg (1928–1938) Leipzig University (1938–1948) Goethe University Frankfurt (1948–1949) University of Heidelberg (1949–2002)
Main interests	Metaphysics Epistemology Language Ontology Aesthetics
Notable ideas	"Practical philosophy" "All products of a tradition stand within that tradition" Language as "unity of the infinite and finite" "Historically-effected" consciousness Fusion of horizons
Influences Plato Aristotle Augustine Kant Hegel Husserl Heidegger Jaspers
Influenced Babette Babich Habermas Henrich Hans Robert Jauss Koselleck Dennis J. Schmidt

Hans-Georg Gadamer (German: [ˈɡaːdamɐ]; February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 magnum opus Truth and Method (Wahrheit und Methode) on hermeneutics.

Gadamer was born in Marburg, Germany, the son of Johannes Gadamer (1867–1928) a pharmaceutical chemistry professor who later also served as the rector of the University of Marburg. He resisted his father's urging to take up the natural sciences and became more and more interested in the humanities. His mother, Emma Karoline Johanna Geiese (1869–1904) died of diabetes while Hans-Georg was four years old, and he later noted that this may have had an effect on his decision to not pursue scientific studies. Jean Grondin describes Gadamer as finding in his mother "a poetic and almost religious counterpart to the iron fist of his father". Gadamer did not serve during World War I for reasons of ill health and similarly was exempted from serving during World War II due to polio.

He grew up and studied classics and philosophy in the University of Breslau under Richard Hönigswald, but soon moved back to the University of Marburg to study with the Neo-Kantian philosophers Paul Natorp (his doctoral thesis advisor) and Nicolai Hartmann. He defended his dissertation—"The Essence of Pleasure according to Plato's Dialogues" (Das Wesen der Lust nach den Platonischen Dialogen)—in 1922.