Delfim Pinto dos Santos (1907–1966), was a Portuguese academic, philosopher, educationist, essayist and book and movie reviewer.
Delfim Santos was born in Oporto, Portugal in 1907, to Arnaldo Pinto and Amelia dos Santos Oliveira. His father was a goldsmith and trained him for his craft, which Delfim successfully practiced as apprentice until Arnaldo's untimely death, occurred when the son was aged 15. Still under the impact of his recent orphan condition, the young Delfim kept the family business running for a while, only to become aware that his vocation and motivation lay elsewhere and thereby decided to pursue a lifelong engagement with study and intellectual quest. By that time he had converted from a non-religious upbringing to Protestantism, and became an active member of the cultural and sportive activities of the Portuguese YMCA.
By 1927, aged 20 (rather late according to average standards of 16/17) he completed high school and enrolled in the University of Porto Faculty of Arts graduating in History and Philosophy in 1931, being one of the last students of this famous school, closed by the authorities shortly after. He had Leonardo Coimbra and Teixeira Rego as his mentors during his student years and among his colleagues were Agostinho da Silva and Adolfo Casais Monteiro.
Immediately after graduation he initiated a career as high school teacher, first in Oporto, then in Lisbon, where he made his aggregation exam required to become a teacher in state run Portuguese high-schools. Having applied to a fellowship to study under the guidance of Martin Heidegger at Freiburg, he was awarded against his will a similar position in Vienna, Austria where he settled by October 1935 as a fellow of the Portuguese Higher Culture Institute, to study under Moritz Schlick, Karl Bühler and Othmar Spann, attending some of the famous Vienna Circle seminars, and writing his critical study on Logical Positivism entitled Positivism: a critical reappraisal (Situação Valorativa do Positivismo) which he presented as his two-years fellowship final report to the Portuguese funding entity.