Gianni Vattimo

Italian philosopher who studied under the existentialist Luigi Pareyson at the University of Turin, and with Karl Löwith and Hans-Georg Gadamer in Heidelberg. At Turin he became assistant professor in 1964, and full professor of Aesthetics in 1969. While remaining at Turin, becoming Professor of Theoretical Philosophy in 1982, he has been a visiting professor at a number of American Universities.

After being active in the Partito Radicale, the short-lived Alleanza per Torino, and the Democrats of the Left, Vattimo joined the Party of Italian Communists. He was elected a member of the European Parliament first in 1999 and for a second mandate in 2009.

Vattimo was staunchly pro-Hamas and anti-Israeli, and once apologized to an Israeli newspaper (Haaretz) for his anti-semitism.

He was openly gay and a nihilist who embraced Nietzsche's idea of God's death. He died on 19 September 2023 at age 87 in Turin.