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U.Porto Memory

Teachers and students of the first Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto

Delfim Pinto dos Santos

	1907-1966 University Teacher, Philosopher and Pedagogue

He was born on 6 November 1907 in Porto. The loss of his father in his early teenage years forced him to find a job in a workshop to fund his studies at night. He attended the Infante D. Henrique Industrial School and completed his studies at the Mouzinho da Silveira Preparatory School. He enrolled as an external student in Alexandre Herculano High School, where in two consecutive years he completed the General Course and the Complementary High School Course, in Sciences and Letters, and enrolled in the University of Porto in the academic year 1927-1928.

Because he felt that the study of Greek, Physical Sciences and Mathematics was essential to the study of Philosophy, he attended some classes in the Mathematical Sciences course at the Faculty of Sciences while he was taking his degree in Historical-Philosophical Sciences at the First Faculty of Arts. He was involved in the intense cultural life of the Porto academia at the end of the 1920s and was elected students’ representative of both Faculties near the University Senate. The invitation sent by Leonardo Coimbra opened new horizons in terms of philosophical speculation. On 2 July 1931, he was one of the last applicants for the First Faculty of Arts of Porto, and completed his degree in Historical-Philosophical Sciences with a final mark of 18 out of 20, and with final marks between 17 and full marks in the twenty one course subjects.

In the academic year 1931-1932, he decided to teach in private high schools in Porto, and the following year he travelled to Coimbra to take his traineeship at the Coimbra Normal High School and the course of Pedagogical Sciences at the Faculty of Arts, as a volunteer student, which he completed with a final mark of 15 out of 20. The 2^nd year of traineeship was completed in Pedro Nunes Normal High School, in Lisbon, during the academic year 1933-1934, with a final mark of 18 out of 20 in Teaching Practice and 16 out of 20 in the State Exam. As a professional teacher, he was appointed Full Professor of the 4^th Group (History and Philosophy) at the Gil Vicente High School, in Lisbon.

With a scholarship awarded by the National Education Board in October 1935, he travelled to the University of Vienna to attend scientific specialization courses and conferences with famous guest speakers from the "School of Vienna", such as Husserl, Shlick, Frobenius and Heisenberg. In the 2^nd semester of 1936, he went to the University of Berlin to participate in new Philosophy of Sciences university courses and meetings, and socialized with Nikolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger and Eduard Spanger, who influenced his thought. The first semester of 1937 was spent between London and Cambridge, where he came into contact with the "Aristotelian Society", of the British Institute of Philosophy, completing his research on the philosophical problems of Sciences.

When his two-year scholarship abroad was over, he returned to Portugal at the end of the summer in 1937, and was immediately invited by the National Board of Education to take on the position of Lecturer at the University of Berlin and "Institut fur Portugal und Brasilein", where he was responsible for several courses and conferences on Portuguese culture. In 1940, he sat his PhD exams in Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Coimbra, and was approved unanimously by the jury formed by Professor Joaquim de Carvalho and Professor Vieira de Almeida, with the thesis entitled "Conhecimento e Realidade" [Knowledge and Reality]. He declined the invitation to become a Lecturer at the University of Oxford, made by the Institute for Advanced Culture, as he preferred to return to Berlin for two more years as Guest Professor of Philosophy.

In January 1943, he became First Assistant of the 3^rd Group (Education Sciences) at the Faculty of Arts of Coimbra, and taught History of Education, School Organization and Administration and History of Ancient Philosophy; the following year, he was invested with Doctoral insignia by Professor Cabral da Moncada, of the University of Coimbra. In 1947, he was approved as Extraordinary Professor of Pedagogical Sciences of the Faculty of Arts of Lisbon, was responsible for the chairs of Pedagogy and Didactics, History of Education, School Organization and Administration, School Psychology and Mental Measures, and was appointed Tenured Professor of the institution one year later.

He gradually favoured the study of Pedagogy over Philosophy, and received a scholarship from the Institute for Advanced Culture (1948) to conduct scientific research in vocational guidance and training in the U.S.A. Finally, in 1950, he rose to the position of Full Professor of the 3^rd Group at the Faculty of Arts of Lisbon, and at the same time worked as Psychology and Sociology teacher at the Institute of Advanced Military Studies (1955-1962). By order of the Ministry of National Education, in 1957 he went on a study mission to several European education institutions to study their operation and the process of pedagogical training of teachers, with the intention of setting up an advanced education institute in Portugal.

He was appointed member of the Advisory Board of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1961, and presented a project to set up the Centre for Pedagogical Research, which he directed since its creation in 1963. Three years later, he also assumed the management of the Adolfo Coelho Pedagogical Institute, linked to the Faculty of Arts of Lisbon. He held all these functions until he died in Cascais on 25 September 1966.
In tribute to his work and scientific merit, acknowledged in international cultural circles, the S. Domingos de Benfica Preparatory School was named after him (1972) and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation sponsored the publication of 4 volumes with an anthology of his philosophical and pedagogical thought: "Obras Completas" [Complete Works] (1971-1998).
(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2008)