The UBA Superior Council mandated the creation of a faculty of philosophy and letters on 3 March 1888, but the corresponding presidential decree was only released twelve years later, on 13 February 1896, by issue of President José Evaristo Uriburu.

In that same decree, Uriburu appointed Bartolomé Mitre, Bernardo de Irigoyen, Carlos Pellegrini, Rafael Obligado, Paul Groussac, Ricardo Gutiérrez, Lorenzo Anadón and Joaquín V. González as the faculty's new authorities.

It wasn't until 1962 that the faculty was granted a seat of its own, a building on Avenida Independencia 3065, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Balvanera.

[3] In addition, FFyL offers professorship degrees on arts, anthropology, education sciences, philosophy, geography, history, and letters.

The faculty is headed by a Dean (Spanish: decano or decana), who presides over the Directive Council (Consejo Directivo).

Social anthropologist Esther Hermitte, credited with introducing structural-functionalist anthropology in Argentina, was a FFyL alumna, as was post-marxist theorist Ernesto Laclau.

[15] The poet and critic Jorge Fondebrider studied literature at FFyL, and later served as director of the UBA-owned Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas.