Career
As a child, his family fled Colombia in response to the presidency of Cipriano Castro. They went to Curacao, then Paris, then, in 1915, to New New York Vivas served as the Venezuelan consul in Philadelphia, then turned to academia studying or teaching at, among other schools, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Chicago, Ohio State University, Northwestern University, Rockford College, and the University of Iowa.
Vivas"s philosophy was essentially conservative, and he relied on poetry as metaphysics while abandoning naturalism.
His papers are collected by Northwestern University.
