The relation between theory and reality in Eugeniu Coșeriu and José Ortega y Gasset

• Published in: Diacronia (Iași) no. 10; pp. 1 - 11
• Main Author: Munteanu, Cristinel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Editura Universităţii »Alexandru Ioan Cuza« din Iaşi 07-11-2019; The Publishing House of the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi; Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza Iași
• Subjects: empirical study; Language and Literature Studies; linguistics; Philosophy; reality; theory; reality; empirical study; linguistics; philosophy; theory
• ISSN: 2393-1140; 2393-1140
• DOI: 10.17684/i10A149en

Taking as a starting point a quote about theory attributed to José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955), a quote which Eugeniu Coșeriu (1921–2002) reproduced distorted in one of his lectures delivered in Romanian (in 1992), I aim—apart from identifying the Spanish philosopher’s work from which the respective quote was extracted—at making a presentation of the two scholars’ conceptions regarding the relation between theory and reality or, better said, between theory and the facts investigated. At first sight, the two conceptions look similar, especially since the two thinkers frequently create the impression of belonging to the same grand family of thinking. I will try to show in this article both the convergent and the divergent aspects of their conception, also pinpointing some consequences which derive from them, of interest for the philosophy of language, as well.