In Memoriam, Robert Pinto


  

In Memoriam 
 

Robert Charles Pinto 
1935–2019 

 
With great sadness we announce the death on September 3rd, 2019, 
of our esteemed colleague and friend, Bob Pinto.  
 Bob was schooled in the history of philosophy at St. Michael’s 
College in the University of Toronto and in contemporary analytic 
philosophy in the Ph.D. program at Toronto, where he wrote a dis-
sertation in epistemology. He was also widely read in 20th century 
continental philosophy. He spent his career at the University of 
Windsor, starting in 1963 and ending in retirement in 1999, as a 
hugely popular teacher and an admired colleague with friends and 
acquaintances in virtually every faculty and school of the University, 
and from the University President to the clerks in the mail room. He 
served as president of the faculty association and as its chief nego-
tiator for several contracts that saw increased benefits and avoided 
strikes. He created a computer program for the faculty to record 
and calculate students’ grades, “Class Record”, that was adopted by 
the University. 
 Bob became interested in informal logic in the 1980s at the urg-
ing of his colleagues, Ralph Johnson and Tony Blair, and published 
in the field for 20 years. A list of his publications may be found at 
the website of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumenta-
tion and Rhetoric (www.uwindsor.ca/crrar) where he was a member 
until his death. His advice and guidance were sought by the editors 
of this journal well before his official association as Associate Editor, 
which ran from 1991 to 2001, and continued thereafter. 
 Bob had a prodigious acquaintance with and memory for the his-
tory of philosophy, and it is a sad irony that the neuro-degenerative 
ravages of Alzheimer’s robbed him of this gift in his last years. He 
will be remembered for his genuine friendliness and kindness as 
well as for his significant contributions to informal logic. As a col-
league expressed it, “He was a lovely man, and a very smart one.” 
We mourn his passing. 

http://www.uwindsor.ca/crrar