Hans-Georg Gadamer (born February 11, 1900,Marburg, Germany—died March 13, 2002, Heidelberg) was a German philosopher whose system of philosophicalhermeneutics, derived in part from concepts ofWilhelm Dilthey,Edmund Husserl, andMartin Heidegger, was influential in 20th-centuryphilosophy,aesthetics, theology, andcriticism.

The son of achemistry professor, Gadamer studied thehumanities at the universities of Breslau, Marburg, Freiburg, and Munich, earning his doctorate in philosophy under Heidegger at Freiburg in 1922. He lectured inaesthetics andethics at Marburg in 1933, at Kiel in 1934–35, and again at Marburg, where he was named extraordinary professor in 1937. In 1939 he was made full professor at theUniversity of Leipzig. He later taught at the universities ofFrankfurt am Main (1947–49) andHeidelberg (from 1949). He became professor emeritus in 1968.

Gadamer’s most important work,Wahrheit und Methode (1960;Truth and Method), is considered by some to be the major 20th-century philosophical statement on hermeneutical theory. His other works includeKleine Schriften, 4 vol. (1967–77;Philosophical Hermeneutics, selected essays from vol. 1–3);Dialogue and Dialectic (1980),comprising eight essays on Plato; andReason in the Age of Science (1982), a translation of essays drawn from several German editions.

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