 De Gortari was one of the first academic philosophers of science in Mexico. He studied the foundation of dialectical logic and the applications of logic to science, and worked on the philosophy of mathematics and physics, the mechanization of propositional calculus, and the history of science in Mexico. In 1955 he founded the Seminar of Scientific and Philosophical Problems. Among his books are La ciencia de la lógica (1950) and Dialéctica de la Física (1964).