However, Silva Dias’ activity should not be restricted to his writings. As mentioned above, his significant work in supervising theses should also be highlighted. It can be said that his work as a historian and professor of contemporary history stands out in this area, which was one of the highlights of his career. If we wish to characterise more explicitly the main lines of his historiography and his theory of history, we could say that Silva Dias, who was mainly concerned with the history of ideas, does not fit into any specific school. What should be said is that he sought to open himself up to all types of historiography that sought to be based on documentation, rigorous and interpretative (with an “open problem” logic). Thus, at a time marked (sometimes as a “fashion”) by Marxism and the influence of the “French school” of the Annales and “New History”, although he never disregarded any of these lines, he did not allow himself to be dazzled by them, expressing, however, a strong opposition to systemic Marxist interpretations, which is evident in his reflection on liberalism, in which he opposes the readings of historians who made their career outside the university (or entered it after 25 April), where the strength of the Marxist school’s ideas was evident, as was the case with Victor de Sá, Fernando Piteira Santos and Armando de Castro. Above all, he wanted his disciples to have a critical understanding of the historiography that was being published – hence his challenge to read works critically and the remarkable library he built up at the Instituto de História e Teoria das Ideias [ Institute of History and Theory of Ideas ] at the Faculdade de Letras de Coimbra [School of Arts and Humanities of Coimbra], and to write an objective history, regardless of the influences they might express.

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