Léo Ramos Chaves / Pesquisa FAPESPThe philosopher in March of this year: rigor, precision, and quick witLéo Ramos Chaves / Pesquisa FAPESP
Luiz Henrique Lopes dos Santos, a professor at the School of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo (FFLCH-USP), passed away in Rio de Janeiro on July 27, at the age of 76. His career was marked by a lifelong dedication to the philosophy of logic and the history of philosophy. Lopes dos Santos played a central role in formulating science policy in the state of São Paulo and carried out influential studies on the Austrian logician and mathematician Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). Fluent in German, French, English, and Greek, he also translated numerous philosophical texts from these languages into Portuguese.
Born in São Paulo, Lopes dos Santos discovered philosophy while still in high school, aged 15. In 1968, he began studying law at USP in the mornings and philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) in the afternoons. His decision to focus on philosophy was influenced by intellectuals such as Otília Arantes and Oswaldo Porchat (1933–2017). In 1969, he gave up law and took the entrance exam to study philosophy at USP, from where he graduated in 1971.
Early in his career, he faced the uncertainties of an academic life threatened by Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964–1985). In the early 1970s, professors such as José Arthur Giannotti (1930–2021) and Bento Prado Júnior (1937–2007) were forced into early retirement, while others went into exile. With USP’s Department of Philosophy severely understaffed, Lopes dos Santos was invited to join the faculty as Porchat’s assistant at the age of just 22.
His academic career—which also included periods at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and Paris 7 University—was distinguished by his commitment to the work of the German logician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), the subject of his doctoral thesis, which was supervised by Porchat and defended at USP in 1981. The paper was published in 2008, titled “O olho e o microscópio” (“The Eye and the microscope”; Nau Editora). In 1977, at UNICAMP, he helped establish the Center for Logic, Epistemology, and the History of Science (CLE), an interdisciplinary institution that proved essential to the development of Brazil’s philosophical community.
In the 1990s, Lopes dos Santos translated Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus into Portuguese for EDUSP, adding a critical introduction. Wittgenstein was key to the “linguistic turn in philosophy,” a movement that placed language at the heart of philosophical thought. “The introductory study is one of the best presentations of Wittgenstein’s work I have ever read, demonstrating both an exact understanding and insightful interpretation,” says Raul Landim Filho, a philosopher at UFRJ, where Lopes dos Santos also taught postgraduates during the 2000s.
Beyond his academic contributions, Lopes dos Santos left a lasting legacy in Brazilian research management through more than three decades of work at FAPESP. He witnessed the foundation’s transformation from a modest agency into an institution with ambitions to achieve something greater (see Pesquisa FAPESP issue n° 351). He began managing the agency’s philosophy department in 1986 and later became associate coordinator for humanities. He helped create research funding programs for thematic projects, public education, and public policies.
In a joint statement, Lopes dos Santos’s colleagues from the FAPESP scientific board’s adjunct panel—including USP biologist MarieAnne Van Sluys—praised his “long and brilliant transversal work, which combined philosophical reflection with a quick wit and ethical rigor.” The group highlighted two innovative initiatives he oversaw at FAPESP: the creation of FAPESP’s Science Journalism Program in 1999, and the creation of its Code of Good Scientific Practice in 2011, which became instrumental to ensuring research integrity in the state of São Paulo. Lopes dos Santos advised on cases of academic misconduct at the foundation until 2023.
“Beyond his contributions to the advancement of knowledge in philosophy, Luiz Henrique will be remembered for his dedication to Pesquisa FAPESP, where he served as editor for more than two decades, and for his commitment to research ethics,” said physician Marco Antonio Zago, president of FAPESP.
Physicist José Fernando Perez, scientific director from 1993 to 2005, recalled that the wording of every new program release and updates to the foundation’s regulations were carefully reviewed by the philosopher. “Luiz Henrique was a language perfectionist and with his strong background in logic, he was always able refine our communication with conciseness and precision.”
Neuroscientist Luiz Eugênio Mello, FAPESP’s scientific director from 2020 to 2023, highlighted Lopes dos Santos’s work at the magazine, his emphasis on communicating closely with the public, and his efforts to create one of the first academic integrity offices in Brazil. “His contributions to FAPESP and science over the course of more than 30 years leave a great legacy,” Mello said.
“Thanks to a deep understanding of scientific research and all its subtleties, he played a key role in defining the direction of new programs at FAPESP and improving existing initiatives,” added physicist Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, the foundation’s scientific director from 2005 to 2020.
Pedro Paulo Pimenta, a philosopher at USP and one of Lopes dos Santos’s former students, remembers him as “a demanding but very clear professor who conveyed the complexity of philosophical problems without diminishing them. Those who attended his classes, which were formative in the strongest sense of the word, never forgot the experience.”
Even after retiring, Lopes dos Santos remained active as a collaborating professor at UFRJ and advising graduate students at USP. In recent years, he returned to the study of Aristotle, demonstrating his enduring intellectual curiosity and commitment to advancing philosophical thought.
According to philosopher Fátima Regina Rodrigues Évora, of UNICAMP’s Center for Logic and Epistemology, his latest work explored themes such as “the universal validity of the principle of sufficient reason” and “the free actions for which agents can be morally accountable,” through analyses of authors such as Godofredo Leibniz (1646–1716) and Aristotle, as well as Stoicism, a philosophy centered on ethics and the pursuit of virtue as a path to happiness.
Philosopher Marco Antônio Zingano of USP recalls that Lopes dos Santos was “impatient with poorly formulated ideas, had a strong need to understand the reasoning, and demanded precision in language and elegance in expression.” “His favorite philosophers were Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Frege, and Wittgenstein, with whom he established a demanding and honest dialogue, seeking novel ideas but always returning to the origin as the foundation of everything,” he explains.
Zingano adds that in recent years, Lopes dos Santos had been working on a commented Portuguese translation of Book VII of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which addresses the answers, difficulties, and impasses of Aristotle’s doctrine of substance.
Lopes dos Santos died of complications from liver cancer. He is survived by his wife Cristina, two children, Mariana and Eduardo, and four grandchildren.
The story above was published with the title “Philosopher of origins” in issue 354 of August/2025.
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