March 13

Hans-Georg Gadamer transformed the study of interpretation with his seminal work 'Truth and Method' (1960), arguing that understanding is always influenced by historical context and dialogue. A student of Martin Heidegger, he developed philosophical hermeneutics into a rigorous discipline that bridged philosophy, literature, and social sciences. Gadamer spent most of his career at the University of Heidelberg, mentoring generations of scholars. His concept of the 'fusion of horizons' reshaped approaches to textual and cultural analysis. Today, his ideas continue to inspire debates in philosophy, literary criticism, and the human sciences.

Born in 1926, Hilary Putnam was a prolific thinker whose work spanned philosophy, mathematics, and computer science. His 'model-theoretic argument' and 'multiple realizability' concepts reshaped debates in philosophy of mind and language. Putnam challenged logical positivism and advanced pragmatic approaches to understanding scientific theories. He taught at prestigious universities and received numerous honors, including the Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy. His writings on realism, ethics, and mathematics influenced generations of scholars across disciplines. He died in 2016, leaving a lasting legacy as one of the 20th century's most versatile intellectuals.