This paper aims to provide a methodical image of the scientific-philosophical positions
held by Eugenio Coseriu and Esa Itkonen, two scholars who share the same view about
the ontology of language and its consequences for the methodology and epistemology of
linguistics, but whose contributions are rarely put side by side. It is not easy to gain access
to Coseriu’s epistemological stance since his opinions are scattered across many different
works. For this reason my main purpose will be to introduce his position through a
systematic comparison to the very similar scientific-philosophical assumptions which
Itkonen has exhibited and defended in a more comprehensive and exhaustive way. In
order to achieve a proper understanding of Coseriu’s and Itkonen’s epistemological
convictions, it will be previously necessary to define the domains of philosophy of science
and philosophy of linguistics and to characterize the two divergent streams we find inside
this metatheoretical domain of research. Subsequently, from the hermeneutic or
phenomenological point of view shared by Coseriu and Itkonen, I will discuss what kind
of (scientific) explanation is to be expected from human sciences, and I will consider the
relationship between the subject and the object of research that exists in this kind of
sciences. Conclusively, I will also examine to what extent for both Coseriu and Itkonen
this relationship determines the specific epistemic act we make use of in disciplines such
as linguistics (namely, intuition), and also the necessity to differentiate them from natural
sciences, where observation prevails
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