In 1972, at just 22 years of age, Luiz Henrique Lopes dos Santos became a faculty member in the Philosophy Department at the School of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo (FFLCH-USP), where he had earned his bachelor’s degree and is now a senior professor. At the time, he was part of a group of young researchers invited to fill the gap left by the compulsory and early retirement of professors persecuted by the military regime. Under the guidance of big names such as Otília Arantes, José Arthur Giannotti (1930–2021), and Oswaldo Porchat (1933–2017), Santos forged a career that spanned philosophy of logic and history of philosophy, working at institutions such as USP, the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), École Normale Supérieure in Paris, Paris Diderot University, and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). His academic production involved mainly the works of German mathematician, logician, and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), the topic of his PhD thesis defended in 1989, at USP, and of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)—one of his most notable contributions was the translation into Portuguese, accompanied by a critical introduction, of Tractatus logico-philosophicus, written in 1921 by Wittgenstein.
Philosophy of logic and history of philosophy
Institution
School of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo (FFLCH-USP)
Education
Bachelor’s degree (1971) and PhD (1981) from USP
Alongside his teaching and academic work in philosophy, he was involved in the management of research funding. For over three decades, he was the philosophy and humanities coordinator of FAPESP’s Scientific Board, assessing thousands of projects proposed by researchers and helping formulate programs for the Foundation. His work at FAPESP included scientific coordination of Pesquisa FAPESP magazine for 21 years and the formulation of the Foundation’s Code of Good Practices in 2011. On a summer afternoon with heavy rain, he received Pesquisa FAPESP at his apartment in São Paulo for the following interview.
Where did your interest in philosophy come from?
When I joined the high school movement, at around 15 years old, I began reading political philosophy and soon moved on to philosophy in general. But when it was time to choose which career to pursue, I was undecided between the more classical route, which in my case would have been law, and philosophy. I come from a family with many lawyers and my father, who was a stockbroker, wanted me to study law. I took the university entrance exam for both courses and in 1968 began law at USP in the morning and philosophy at PUC-SP [Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo] in the afternoon.
When did you decide your professional path?
In the 1960s, an academic career, the natural path for a philosopher, was minimally institutionalized. It caused a certain insecurity. The person who put me on the philosophy path was Otília Arantes, who was my professor at PUC and one of my big academic references. She showed me that such a professional path was possible. When I decided to transfer my philosophy course to USP, mainly due to Otília’s influence, I already felt that the balance was tipping towards philosophy. I took the entrance exam again and enrolled in the class of 1969.
How was the transition to studying philosophy at USP?
A little frustrating. At the time, the department had lost professors who had been persecuted by the military regime. In my first month, I had a class with José Arthur Giannotti, who was soon forced into early retirement, just like Bento Prado Júnior [1937–2007]. Others had to flee Brazil, such as Ruy Fausto [1935–2020]. The department was left completely understaffed. In mid-1969, I went ahead and bravely scheduled an interview with Giannotti at CEBRAP [Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning], which he helped to fund, and said: “I went to do philosophy at USP because of professors like yourself, who are no longer there. What do I do? Giannotti was preparing an article about Durkheim [1858–1917], who is a sociology theorist, and asked me to read some texts and make a presentation for him. I passed the test, and from then on, I informally began what is now called scientific initiation, under Giannotti’s guidance. Every 15 days, I would go to his house to talk about Kant. We became good friends.
Did you graduate in law and philosophy?
For three years, I took both courses simultaneously. It continued like that until Oswaldo Porchat’s assistant, who was my logic professor, accepted a great job offer, in financial terms, at Banco do Brasil. At the end of 1970, Porchat came looking for me and said that if I finished the course the following year, I could be hired as his assistant. To be able to complete two years in one, I had to give up law, but I left it knowing I was beginning a career in philosophy. The call from Porchat was decisive because I was undecided between aesthetics and logic.
What was it like becoming a university professor at such a young age?
Of course, I was very nervous. I was 22 years old, younger than most of the students. But, as I said, the department was really understaffed. I remember that other professors my age were hired such as Carlos Alberto de Moura, Ricardo Ribeiro Terra, and Olgária Mattos, among others. Some of them were invited by Giannotti to take part in a seminar at CEBRAP, which ran between 1971 and 1973. This experience was really important for my training because of the high level of the debates.
When my father died, my mother had to go out to work and at the same time, at around age 43, she enrolled on the social sciences course at USP
Did the news of the job leave your father more relaxed regarding your career choice?
He was relieved when he heard the news because he was extremely concerned about my future. Unfortunately, he died soon after, age 49, at the end of 1971. He was a well-off man, but he was never rich. He preferred traveling to saving money. With his death, my mother, who was a housewife, had to support herself. She went to work with her brother and decided to study social sciences. At around 43 years of age, she passed the entrance exam at USP, in the 1970s. We used to cross paths at university, me as a professor and she as a student. After graduating, she went to work at the Support Foundation for Imprisoned Workers, where she remained until she retired in the 1990s. Her role was taking care of the literacy part, and in this job she had contact with inmates such as Chico Picadinho, the famous serial killer from the 1960s and 1970s. My mother was very dynamic and even back when she was a housewife she took part in progressive Catholic activism. In fact, that even influenced me joining the high school movement in 1964, just before the military coup.
What did you study for your master’s degree?
I don’t have a master’s degree. I started doing the research for my master’s degree in 1972, at USP, on mathematics, logic, and the German philosopher Gottlob Frege, under Porchat’s guidance. However, when I was about to start writing the dissertation, Porchat called me to be his right-hand man at the Center of Logic, Epistemology, and History of Science as well as in the Department of Philosophy that he was going to set up at UNICAMP. This was in 1975. On accepting the invitation, he warned me that it would be unfeasible to continue the research for my master’s degree at that time.
How did the idea of the center come about?
Porchat had the idea to create it at USP, but the department of philosophy rejected the proposal due to ideological differences. We were living in a highly polarized environment. Those of us in the field of logic were considered reactionary and alienated because some people from the department believed the discipline was linked to capitalism. But Porchat was a good friend of the then vice dean of UNICAMP, engineer and physicist Rogério Cesar de Cerqueira Leite [1931–2024]. He told the dean of UNICAMP at the time, Zeferino Vaz [1908–1981], that it was a golden opportunity for the university in the field of philosophy. Zeferino fell in love with the idea of an interdisciplinary center and provided the material resources that no initiative linked to philosophy had in Brazil at the time. This made it possible, for example, to bring in visiting researchers from abroad and organize international conferences. The center was founded in 1977 and remains active.
What was its composition?
It was made up of researchers from the department of philosophy at UNICAMP and from areas like mathematics, sociology, physics, linguistics, and theology. I was assigned to make the link with the Institute of Language, where I gave classes between 1977 and 1981.
Was there a community of logicians in Brazil?
There was, but it was, and still is, very small. The most well-known was Newton da Costa [1929–2024], who was at USP at the time but was a major influence on some members of the center, such as Ayda Arruda and Itala D’Ottaviano. At that time, I also got closer to Newton and his paraconsistent logic, having published a few papers. Beyond its contributions to the realm of logic, the center was fundamental in shaping an academic philosophy community in Brazil. At that time, there were several centers with very qualified people spread across various states in Brazil. By connecting these islands of knowledge through its activities, the center contributed, for example, to the creation of ANPOF [National Association of Graduate Studies in Philosophy], in 1983.
The center that we created at UNICAMP in the 1970s was fundamental in shaping an academic philosophy community in Brazil
What did you study on the PhD program?
My PhD, supervised by Porchat, was an extension of that unfinished research from my master’s degree. I sought to understand how Frege, in the second half of the nineteenth century, caused a break from the Aristotelian model of logic, which had prevailed for around 2,000 years. To answer the questions that arose during his research into the fundamentals of mathematics, he was obliged to rethink logic. Thus, he conceived what we today call mathematical logic. I was hired by UNICAMP as a professor with a PhD with the condition of finishing my thesis in 1980, but it was a battle to complete the research. Between 1975 and 1978 I barely touched my thesis because I was immersed in the bureaucracy of the department and center, teaching classes, and holding seminars. In 1978, I went back to it and defended it in 1981. The work was published in 2008, as O olho e o microscópio [The eye and the microscope; Nau Editora].
You stayed at UNICAMP until 1981. Why did you decide to go back to USP?
For personal reasons. I had separated, and my children, who were still small, lived with their mother in São Paulo. Since I didn’t want to be on the road all the time, I returned to the department of philosophy at USP. At that time, Giannotti had also returned to USP and together we taught Introduction to Philosophy to first-year undergraduates. He gave what he called an introductory lecture, and I held seminars with the students, dissecting the texts, reading, and rereading them several times. We educated several generations of philosophers.
In the 1990s, you translated Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus for EDUSP, a book written in 1921 by Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. What were the challenges of that work?
It is not easy translating such complex writing like that of Wittgenstein, who is one of the great philosophers of language, from German to Portuguese. To give you an idea, the introductory study that I wrote to explain the place of the Tractatus in the history of philosophy is longer than the book itself. Giannotti had already translated this work and written an introduction to it back in 1968. It was the second translation in the world, after the English one, and it was a Herculean task on Giannotti’s part, considering Wittgenstein had only been dead for 17 years. He was a contemporary, and there was practically no literature on his work. In the 1990s, EDUSP proposed that Giannotti produce a new edition of his Portuguese version.
Giannotti himself said that the work he did in the 1960s contained lots of errors. Do you agree?
There were some errors, not so much in the translation from German, but conceptual errors, because there was very little familiarity with that field at the time. It is the case of the specific German philosophy terms from the nineteenth century, relating to philosophers like Franz Brentano [1838–1917], who few people had read in Brazil. Upon receiving the invitation from EDUSP in the 1990s, Giannotti asked me to review the work, but I felt it would become Frankenstein’s monster and proposed redoing the translation. Giannotti agreed and handed the mission over to me.
Between 1986 and 2007, Giannotti was in charge of CEBRAP’s Professional Training Program. What was your role in it?
It was an interdisciplinary training program aimed at postgraduate students from different fields of knowledge, made possible by an agreement between CAPES [The Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education] and CEBRAP. It was difficult to enter. Over the course of two years, these students participated in activities such as seminars on anthropology, political science, sociology, economics, and philosophy. The meetings were held twice a week, and the teaching staff included Paul Singer [1932–2018] and Ruth Cardoso [1930–2008]. I actively participated in the philosophy center until going to Paris, in the late 1990s.
You joined FAPESP in 1986. What was the Foundation like at that time?
In 1986, Flavio Fava de Moraes, who was the scientific director at FAPESP, invited me to substitute João Paulo Monteiro [1938–2016] in the field of philosophy on the Board of Human and Social Sciences. There was no general coordinator, but the role, due to his personality and background, was filled by Leôncio Martins Rodrigues [1934–2021]. There was Boris Fausto [1930–2023] in history, Maria Alice Vanzolini in psychology, Cláudia Lemos in linguistics, and me in philosophy.
One of the first thematic projects in humanities was by filmmaker Jean-Claude Bernardet, from USP, whose product was a film
The workload at the time was small compared to what it is today, right?
We would go in on Mondays and, in the first part of the meeting, we’d discuss Sunday’s soccer results—Boris, like me, was a die-hard Corinthians fan. We had around 15 or 20 proposals to analyze each week. Each of us would get around four. We studied them, produced a report, and decided whether or not to approve the grant or funding. And we went home. It was another world. A change had just taken place that would transform the profile of FAPESP, in the shape of an amendment to the state Constitution proposed by congressman Fernando Leça and approved in 1983. It determined that allocations from the Treasury to FAPESP, then fixed at 0.5% of tax revenue, be calculated based on the current year and allocated in twelve monthly installments. Previously, the calculation was made based on the previous year’s revenue and by the time the funds arrived, they had been eroded by 13 months of inflation. After the Leça Amendment, the Foundation became aware that it had financial power to reach much further. This was completed in 1989, when the new State Constitution increased funding for the Foundation to 1% of the state’s tax revenue.
In practice, how did this ambition materialize?
One of the milestones was the thematic projects initiative. FAPESP had had big projects in the 1960s and 1970s, but they were one-offs, such as the biodiversity survey of the Amazon done by zoologist Paulo Vanzolini [1924–2013], in the 1960s. Thematic projects were the first regular line of major funding. A discussion arose within FAPESP about whether it was worth giving so much money to the humanities—it was one thing awarding grants for master’s degrees, but approving the budget for a thematic project was something very different. The merit goes to Fava, who really put his foot down. One of the first thematic projects in humanities was by filmmaker Jean-Claude Bernardet, from USP, whose product was a film. I remained as philosophy coordinator until 1989. Leôncio left and Fava invited me to take over as adjunct coordinator. Until 1989, area coordinators would go to FAPESP once a week and did not have any organic relationship with the Foundation. With the creation of the adjunct coordinator roles by Fava, they began to mediate between the area coordinators and the scientific director. In 1993, José Fernando Perez took over the scientific board, he asked me to continue, and I accepted.
In 1997, you stepped away from FAPESP to spend a period in France but returned to the Foundation upon returning to Brazil. How was that return?
I spent two years in Paris as a visiting researcher at the École Normale Supérieure and professor at Paris Diderot University, and Paula Montero replaced me. When I returned, in early 1999, I was called to work with Paula because there was already the need for two adjunct coordinators in the humanities areas. Perez had his own creative dynamic and restructured the scientific board. He increased the number of adjunct coordinators and every week we met for two or three hours in a discussion circle to talk about what was happening. Many FAPESP programs were born from those meetings. The vibrancy of Perez’s tenure came from having people from all areas talking to each other. This was taken to an even larger scale when Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz took control of the scientific board, in 2005. Everything went through the adjunct coordinators. Once a month, 15 adjunct coordinators met and spent the entire afternoon talking.
How many scientific directors have you worked with?
There were four. The last tenure, of Luiz Eugênio Mello, was heavily disrupted by the pandemic. He worked miracles. He replaced me as adjunct coordinator with Ângela Alonso, but I only got to know her personally at the end of his term. He kept the scientific board working and did important things such as the effort to create research on COVID-19 and the first projects from the Generation Program, aimed at younger researchers, still without employment relationships. He also boosted the adoption of equality and inclusion policies. Fava’s administration gave FAPESP greater ambition and created an institutional structure so the Foundation could work creatively. Perez took advantage of this, thanks to his personality. He was the embodiment of enthusiasm. When Brito took over, there were a large number of programs already in their fourth or fifth year. Brito, also due to his personality of being rational and systematic, brought order, formalized things, and assessed what was working and what wasn’t. He improved and refined the existing programs and began a strong push to internationalize research in São Paulo.
What was your contribution to implementing the Public Education Program?
One of the revolutions Perez implemented was creating technological research programs, especially in partnership with companies. But he had the wisdom to consider a broad view of applied research. Research in the humanities can be applied and result in the formulation and implementation of public policies. Perez believed that applied research requires a partner who will potentially use it. From there, the idea emerged of starting with public education, doing research in partnership with public schools. We called Maria Malta Campos, from PUC-SP and the Carlos Chagas Foundation, to assist us. I coordinated for a period and passed the baton on to Marilia Sposito. Because it was successful, there was demand and partnership, it had everything, and then the Public Policy Program was launched.
The good practices policy should be pedagogical, but one way of educating is by not allowing the wrong things that happen to go unpunished
How did Pesquisa FAPESP magazine come about, of which you were the scientific coordinator between 2001 and 2022?
The concept was born out of a conversation between then editor in chief Mariluce Moura and Perez. I came on board when it was already in motion because I was in Paris when the idea first came up. From the beginning, the goal was to create a magazine not for FAPESP, but for science communication in Brazil and especially São Paulo. Secondly, it had to be a journalistic outlet and guided by scientists. For this, it was fundamental for it to be a project linked to the Scientific Board. This enabled the creation of standards that guaranteed the quality that the magazine developed.
Do you mean, for example, that the magazine has a Scientific Committee composed of area coordinators and adjunct coordinators from the Scientific Board?
From the outset, the articles in the magazine were read by the coordinators of their respective areas. The idea was to have a balance between journalistic language and scientific rigor. On the one hand, there were people who said that the magazine was not rigorous enough from a scientific point of view. On the other, that it presented things that were difficult for the lay public to understand. Criticism from both sides gave us the idea that the magazine was on the right path, taking the middle road.
In 2001, you and Professor Perez wrote an article about conflicts of interest in research. Was it the beginning of the debate that would lead to the Code of Good Practices a decade later?
It was a localized issue. FAPESP didn’t have a conflict-of-interest policy because there had never been a serious problem related to it. And there was a serious problem with a research project assessing the health risks of asbestos. A lot of money was invested, and the results were favorable to asbestos. Then, it was discovered that the researcher had a relationship with a company producing asbestos.
And how did the Code of Good Practices come about?
It just came out of the blue for me. In September 2010, I had undergone appendix surgery in Rio and while recovering I received a request from Brito to study what existed in the world regarding good practices. I did this study, which resulted in a text, in early 2011, that today is on the FAPESP website. Then Brito asked me to write a preliminary draft of a code of good practices. For six months, I dedicated myself to this task. I discussed the preliminary draft with Celso Lafer, then president of FAPESP, who gave it the necessary legal backing. The second version was completed, which Brito circulated among the associate deans and scientific societies. We conducted a wide-scale consultation and published it at the end of 2011. Ten years after the code, all the public universities in São Paulo have a good practices commission.
Afterwards, you began overseeing the cases of misconduct that reached the Foundation.
I always insisted, and Brito strongly supported it, that the main axis of the good practices policy must be pedagogical. But one way of educating is by not allowing the wrong things that happen to go unpunished. It is necessary to have a rigorous and fair system for receiving complaints, investigating, and ensuring transparency of the results. That requires a lot of work. When you receive a complaint, you have to guarantee time for a defense. It is the institutions that are equipped to investigate what happens on their premises. They can do so impartially and objectively, but there are situations in which they can be swayed by corporatism. In such cases, it is necessary to reject the institution’s investigation, resulting in a political crisis. I took care of this from 2011 until 2023. The majority of the cases didn’t cause confusion, but the few that did were difficult.
Do you divide your time between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro nowadays?
Yes. I am a senior professor at USP and supervise postgraduate studies in philosophy. Additionally, I am a collaborating professor at UFRJ, where I participate in seminars and teach short courses. As I am retired, I now have more time to dedicate to academic writing. In the past five years, I have been delving into Aristotle’s way of thinking and have already published some articles on the topic. But I am in no rush. Theoretical production in philosophy is a task that requires patience.
The above interview was published with the title “Luiz Henrique Lopes dos Santos: The call of logic” in issue 351 of May/2025.
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