Carlos Vaz Ferreira, the Uruguayan educator and philosopher, was born in Montevideo. He became a professor of philosophy and rector at the University of Montevideo and played a prominent part in the theory and administration of primary and secondary education in Uruguay. He wrote voluminously and was a popular lecturer. As a result, he was for several decades a major intellectual force in his country. At various times and in various respects, he was influenced by Herbert Spencer, J. S. Mill, William James, and Henri Bergson, without full commitment to any of them.

Vaz Ferreira was impressed by the fluid complexity of experience, thought, and reality. Words and logical forms impose false precision and system on the contents of thought. The remedy is not a flight from reason but the development of a plastic reason close to experience, life, and instinct, alert...