Influenced by John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer, he is notable for introducing liberal, pluralistic political values and pragmatic philosophical concepts to South American society.

Vaz Fererira's philosophical views were formed under the influence of positivism, which was dominant in Uruguay as well as in Europe during the Fin de siècle period.

Vaz Ferreira transcended these early influences, integrating them with the work of other authors he encountered throughout his life, notably William James and especially Henri Bergson.

Vaz Ferreira conceived of language itself as a system of classification in which to speak of something is merely to establish its place in a simplified scheme, and therefore to detach it from the complexity of reality.

This detachment allows a distinction to be made between reality and its expression, avoiding transcendentalization, shifting the burden of ontological concerns to the linguistic level, where they need not be contemplated.

For Vaz Ferreira, the difference between scientific inquiry and the world is revealed by the attribution to the former of an instrumental character, a distinction that runs against the positivism of the philosopher's formative years.

The philosophical understanding of science corresponds not to a formal scheme but to a gradual process, in which the objects of scientific inquiry are assessed independently and inclusively.

This deepening leads to a loss of precision, according to which science, although a form of knowledge that is distributed and shared, establishes itself as an imperious necessity, the same as philosophy.

One of Vaz Ferreira's fundamental concepts is Living Logic (Lógica Viva) or Psycho-Logic (Psico-Lógica), which he began to develop after completing "The Problems of Liberty".

The central idea of Living Logic is to uncover the way in which language and schematization not only depart from reality, but many times encounter problems that do not exist.

This exhibition of errors, fallacies, and paralogisms forms the basis of a new mode of thought, more comprehensive than the traditional variety, based on the living, concrete phenomena on which schemes are formulated.

Vaz Ferreira conceived of morality as an intent to delineate reality according to the categories imposed by schemes and language, combined with the rejection of systematic and dogmatic solutions.