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## ON THE INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LINGUISTICS AND PHILOSOPHY IN EUGENIO COSERIU'S SCIENTIFIC THINKING

Araceli López Serena University of Seville cheilop@us.es

## Abstract ♣

This article aims to show how closely interrelated philosophy and linguistics are in Eugenio Coseriu's scientific thinking. It  argues  that  Synchrony,  Diachrony  and History (SDH), one of the author's major works, cannot be conceived as a mere treatise  on  the  problem  of  linguistic  change,  but  needs  to  be  recognised  as  a fundamental work for unravelling the epistemological principles that underpin the philosophical-scientific edifice of Coseriu's linguistic theory. Based on SDH, it will be shown how, in this work, Coseriu insists on the errors of the approach and method  that  the  causalist  perspective  promotes,  how  he  advocates  for  the differentiation between natural sciences and human sciences and the consequent application, in the latter, of a finalist perspective, and finally how he describes the epistemic activities involved in resorting to the original knowledge or intuition that the linguist has as a speaker of the language under study.

♣ This paper is based on the content of the third chapter of my book La lingüística como ciencia humana. Una incursión desde la filosofía de la ciencia [Linguistics as a human science:  An  incursion  from  the  philosophy  of  science].  However,  it  is  not  merely  a translation  of  that  chapter,  which  had,  in  turn,  the  precedent  of  information  already outlined in López Serena (2019b). I have thoroughly revised the entire text, introduced a large number of reformulations, deleted some passages, and updated the bibliographical references. All quotations are published in English here for the first time, some based on my adaptations in Spanish, and are shown with quotation marks when not indented. All references  refer  to  the  publications  cited  in  their  original  languages.  In  its  purpose  of highlighting  the  importance of  Eugenio  Coseriu's  contributions  to  the  epistemological grounding of linguistic theorising and description, this paper coincides with the aims of López Serena (2021 and in press). I trust that the decision to offer non-Spanish-speaking readers the results of my approaches to the philosophical dimension of Eugenio Coseriu's linguistic thinking will contribute to the better dissemination of the valuable work of this indispensable author. The research on which this article is based belongs to the project I+D+i  PID2021-123763NA-I00 Hacia  una  diacronía  de  la  oralidad/escrituralidad: variación  concepcional,  traducción  y  tradicionalidad  discursiva  en  el  español  y  otras lenguas románicas (DiacOralEs) [Towards a diachrony of orality/literacy: conceptional variation,  translation,  and  discursive  traditionality  in  Spanish  and  other  Romance languages], funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.

Keywords: Eugenio  Coseriu's  scientific  thinking,  philosophy  of  linguistics, Sincronía,  diacronía  e  historia  (Synchrony,  Diachrony  and  History),  natural  vs human sciences, causal vs finalist explanations, original knowledge, intuition.

## 1. Introduction

One  of  the  rarely  emphasised 1 idiosyncratic  characteristics  of  Eugenio Coseriu's  scientific  thinking  is  the  nature  of  the  intersection  between philosophy and linguistics frequently presented in his work. For Coseriu, linguistics and philosophy are closely interrelated, to such an extent, in fact, that in Sincronía, diacronía e historia (Synchrony, Diachrony and History) - the work on which the reflections contained in the following pages are based  -  in  stark  contrast  to  those  who  contend  that  'with  respect  to philosophy, linguistics is autonomous', he states that 'such autonomy is impossible, and to claim it, in itself, is a contradiction in terms' (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :199). Coseriu further argues that:

many  linguists,  who  yearn  for an  autonomy  that  is  in  fact illegitimate , regard philosophy, which  is the very science of principles,  with  suspicion.  Owing  to  this  state  [...]  of  regrettable isolation,  old  problems,  which  have  long  since  been  solved  or eliminated as inconsistent by philosophy or by other human sciences, are still presented as 'current' in linguistics. (Coseriu1958/1988 3 :217, n. 63; my bold)

In this regard, Coseriu's own position is dramatically opposed to that of other  linguists  whom  he  describes  as  'yearning  for  an  illegitimate autonomy' in relation to philosophy. In his linguistic works, he highlights what  -  for  the  moment  -  could  be  called,  in  his  words,  'problems  of philosophy of language', which, he indicates, 'are specifically dealt with [...] in Forma  y  sustancia  (Form  and  Substance ), in Logicismo  y antilogicismo ( Logicism and Antilogicism ), in 'Determinación y entorno'

1 For some of the few exceptions in this respect cf. Agud (2003, 2021, 2023), López Serena (2009, 2019a, 2019b, 2021, 2022), Haßler (2015), Albrecht (2015), Bota (2008), Vîlcu (2014), Rodríguez (2016), Trabant (2021).

('Determination and Environment'), and in Sincronía, diacronía e historia ( Synchrony, Diachrony and History )...' (Coseriu 1968:50).

In fact, Coseriu exhibits an evident propensity to constantly base his linguistic theorising on aspects that, strictly speaking, do not belong to the theory  of  language  or  general  linguistics, 2 but  rather  to  the  field  of philosophy of language. Moreover, Coseriu's inclination towards philosophy  is  also  recurrently  manifest  in  his  concern  for  the  scientific legitimacy of the discipline - a concern that is no longer the subject of philosophy of language, but philosophy of linguistics - and highlights his vindication  that  'as  regards  knowledge, what  matters  is  the  scientific quality  of  the  knowledge ,  regardless  of  whether  it  leads  to  a  yes  or  no' (Coseriu  1953/1977:262;  my  italics).  As  a  consequence,  the  twosome formed  by  linguistics  and  philosophy,  expressed  in  his  work,  does  not actually constitute a binomial, but rather - as could not be otherwise, given Coseriu's predilection for tripartite schemes - a trinomial. This trinomial or  'trinity'  (if  we  echo  Haßler's  2015  proposal  to  name  such  tripartite schemes), which could be perfectly represented by a triangle (see Figure 1 below), is more inclined towards philosophy. As such, it is unsurprising that  two  of  its  vertices,  philosophy  of  language  and  philosophy  of linguistics, are, as their names suggest, philosophical in nature.

2 On the differentiation between linguistic theory and general linguistics, see Section 3, Figures 2 and 3, below.

Philosophy of Linguistics Linguistics Thus, when  analysing the interrelationship between  linguistics and philosophy in Coseriu's scientific work, there are three areas that cannot be ignored: linguistics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of linguistics. As  far  as  the  latter  two  are  concerned,  philosophy  of  language  and philosophy of linguistics, it is important to underline that their interests and objects of analysis are by no means coincidental. Owing to this, in contrast to  the  frequent  and  sometimes indistinct use of the labels philosophy of language, linguistic philosophy , and philosophy of linguistics , I insist on using a differentiated approach:

Figure 1. Linguistics and Philosophy in Eugenio Coseriu's thinking

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- (i) philosophy of language to  refer  to  the  branch  of  philosophy  that deals  with  the  relationship  between  language,  knowledge,  and reality, in relation to the nature of meaning, and asks, for example, whether  or  not  it  is  possible  to  differentiate  clearly  between  the three  domains  (language,  knowledge,  and  reality),  as  well  as inquiring into the nature of language itself.
- (ii) linguistic  philosophy to  denote  the  philosophical  trend  which, inspired by Wittgenstein's philosophy, gave rise to the renowned linguistic focus in Anglophone philosophy.

- (iii) And lastly, philosophy of linguistics to allude to any metatheoretical, epistemological - or, if you will, methodological - reflection whose object of analysis is the tenets of linguistics as a scientific discipline.

Moreover, I firmly believe that by defending this differentiation, my stance is  categorically  consistent  with  Coseriu's  commitment  to  precise  and rigorous categorisations. In fact, in line with Coseriu's thinking, together with the close relationship observed between linguistics and philosophy, it is  no  coincidence  that  the  second  clearest  and  most  general  constant  of Coseriu's contribution to the three fields mentioned (linguistics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of linguistics) is his obsession with differentiation.  For  example,  in  the  field  of  linguistics,  he  differentiates those aspects that concern the system from those that concern the norm (see Coseriu 1952) 3 , or the universal , historical , and actual level of language (Coseriu  1956-57,  1988,  1990,  2007),  and,  in  correlation, elocutionary , idiomatic , and discursive  knowledge ,  and  the  concepts  of designation , meaning , and sense, and congruence,  correctness , and appropriateness (sets of three which Haßler 2015 referred to as the Coseriu trinities). And in  the  sphere  of  interrelations  between  linguistics  and  philosophy,  he differentiates between language theory and general linguistics, on the one hand, and philosophy of language and linguistics, on the other. Nevertheless,  as  seen  above,  he  does  not  consider  them  autonomous disciplines.

However,  having  just  defended  the  differentiation  theory  above, according to Coseriu, it is more difficult to clearly differentiate between philosophy  of  language  and  philosophy  of  linguistics  than  it  appears. Nevertheless, there is at least one article in which Coseriu seems firmly committed  to  clarifying  his  stance.  In  a  work  published  in  Italian,  in relation to differentiating between generic interdisciplinarity and specific interdisciplinarity, Coseriu states that the former (generic interdisciplinarity) can be established between any discipline and philosophy in  two  different  forms:  as  a  philosophy  of  the  object  of  the discipline -specifically, as ontological reflection, characteristic of philosophy of language - and as philosophy of science or epistemology:

3 With regard to Coseriu's concept of norm, of particular interest are: Koch (1988), Méndez García de Paredes (1999), López Serena (2015), Kabatek (2020), and Willems (2022), among others.

L'interdisciplinarità  genérica  è  quella  che  si  riscontra  fra  ogni disciplina e la filosofía, quest'ultima sotto due forme diverse: come filosofía  dell'oggetto  della  disciplina  in  questione  e come  filosofía della scienza (epistemologia) (Coseriu 1980:44). 4

## 2. Aims and structure of this paper

From what has been discussed so far, it would seem clear that Coseriu's work is built on the basis of two fundamental concerns or 'obsessions'. On the one hand, the indissoluble union, in his approach to language, between the linguistic dimension and the philosophical dimension of theorisation, and, on the other, his obstinacy for differentiation. In relation to both the former  and  the  latter,  the  aim  of  this  paper  is  manifold.  To  begin  with (Section 3.1), I analyse whether Coseriu's evident fixation on differentiation was reflected in his philosophical-linguistic considerations with the same intensity as it was in his purely linguistic work or linguistics per se. Next (Section 3.2), I analyse to what extent Coseriu's obsession with differentiation  stemmed - or did not stem - from his contact with philosophy. And lastly (Section 3.3), it seems pertinent to examine which aspects of Coseriu's linguistic thinking, argumentation procedures, categorisations, and essential concepts of his linguistic theorising had their origin  in  questions  of  a  philosophical  nature,  especially  with  regard  to philosophy of linguistics. For the last objective, I primarily use Sincronía, diacronía  e  historia (Section  4),  one  of  the  publications  that  Coseriu highlights as one of the main works in which he addresses questions of philosophy of language and which, to my knowledge, was first addressed in an epistemological analysis in López Serena (2019b). In this regard, I aim to show to what extent Sincronía, diacronía e historia is not, as the subtitle  of  this  monograph  states,  a  mere  treatise  on  the  problem  of linguistic change, but a fundamental work for unravelling the epistemological principles that underpin the philosophical-scientific edifice of Coseriu's linguistic theory in its entirety. 5

4 Generic interdisciplinarity can be found between any discipline and philosophy, the latter in two different forms: as a philosophy of the object of the discipline in question and as a philosophy of science (epistemology).

## 3. The philosophical roots of Coserian linguistics

Attesting  to  Coseriu's  eagerness  to  differentiate,  which  is  exceptionally characteristic of his linguistic and philosophical works, is not particularly difficult.  One  only  has  to  open  the  first  pages  of  his Geschichte  der Sprachphilosophie… 6 where, in the introductory chapter at the head of the original edition of the first volume - a chapter that Albrecht unfortunately removed in his 2003 edition - Coseriu denounces the confused state of affairs 7 and the state of abandonment or neglect 8 in which, at the time of his writing, the philosophy of language was, in his opinion, mired:

Die Forschungslage im Bereich der Sprachphilosophie erweist sich bei  einer  näheren  Betrachtung  als verworren und hilflos .  (Coseriu 1969:1; my italics) 9

## 3.1 Coseriu's scientific distinctions

As a result, and in view of his passion for cognitio clara et distincta , the need  naturally  arose  to  provide  students  with  a  general  conceptual framework  from  which  to  define  philosophy  of  language  as  a  distinct discipline. As could not be otherwise, the conceptual framework comprised

5 This is also suggested by the fact that it is the only work by Coseriu that is echoed by Esa Itkonen, one of the most eminent contemporary linguistics philosophers (see e.g. Itkonen 2011, 2013-14).

6 I refer to Geschichte der Sprachphilosophie von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (History of the Philosophy of Language from Antiquity to the Present Day), which was published in German by Rudolf Windisch and Gunter Narr in 1969 and 1972, respectively, based on the edited notes taken in two homonymous courses that Coseriu had taught in the winter semesters of 1968/69 and 1970/71 at the University of Tübingen. A version in Spanish has not been published (see Coseriu 1969, 2003). For an English review of Coseriu's History of the Philosophy of Language, see Forster (2017).

7 The adjective verworren used by Coseriu equates to 'chaotic', 'confused', 'disorderly', 'muddled'.

8 The word he uses in German, which I emphasise, as the participle verworren , referred to in the previous footnote and italicised in the following quotation, is hilflos .

9 On closer examination, the research situation in the field of philosophy of language proves to be confused and neglected.

1. Historical science (eine Wissenschaft als Geschichte)

1. Historical questions (historische Fragen)

2. General science (eine Wissenschaft vom Allgemeinen)

Science

(Wissenschaft)

3. Philosophical science (eine Wissenschaft im Sinne der Philosophie)

a series of basic terminological-conceptual differentiations which Coseriu embodies in the diagrams reproduced in Figures 2 and 3 (below). Within linguistics,  these  concepts  facilitate  the  differentiation  between  (i)  the linguistics  of  languages  or  text  as  historical  disciplines,  (ii)  general linguistics,  and  (iii)  the  theory  of  language  -  the  latter,  according  to Coseriu, is intimately related to the philosophy of language and (iv) the philosophy of language itself:

Figure 2. The three categories of science according to Coseriu (1969:12)

Figure 3. The three categories of scientific questions according to Coseriu (1969:13)

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Although a detailed analysis of these differentiations would divert us from the objectives formulated in Section 2, we should not overlook the fact that Coseriu  considers  historical  knowledge  as  a  specific  type  of  scientific knowledge. He defines it as a type of science that deals with individual objects by considering their uniqueness and not that they belong to a certain class. He also specifies that this type of historical science (including the linguistics of languages and text linguistics) is not only interested in the development of a historical individual (i.e. the diachronic aspect) but also in  the  description  of  the  historical  individual  at  a  certain  point  in  time (synchronic).  I  would  like  to  highlight  this  point  because  I  believe  it  is important to emphasise how the notion of the historical (which, in the first chapter  of  Coseriu's Geschichte  der  Sprachphilosophie ,  is  suggested  as having a propaedeutic function), from the perspective of the philosophy of linguistics, is perfectly coherent - or, rather, absolutely identical - to the notion of the historical that is proposed in Sincronía, diacronía e historia :

A  language,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term  (Spanish  language, French language, etc.), is by its very nature a 'historical object'. [In note] A historical  object  'by  its  [very]  nature'  is  an  absolutely individuated object, within its species, as such and no other [...]; in other words, an object which has a proper name (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :20 & 20, n. 27; my bold).

This being the case, the idea established in Coseriu's book on the theory of linguistic change that differentiations are clearly inspired by epistemology seems to gain strength (see Sections 3.3 and 4 below).

## 3.2 The philosophical roots of Coseriu's distinctions

The  coincidence  that  I  have  highlighted  above  helps  to  clarify  to  what extent  the  concepts  and  categories  with  which  Coseriu  approaches  the problem of linguistic change come  not from linguistics but from philosophy  (in  this  case  from  the  philosophy  of  linguistics,  which  is responsible for differentiating types of scientific knowledge). This approach to  the  definition  of  historical  objects  is  far  from  exhausted  in Sincronía, diacronía e historia , but it is shown with absolute clarity in the differentiation that Coseriu establishes between the:

three  different  problems  of  language  change,  which  are  often confused with each other: a) the rational problem of change (why do  languages  change,  i.e.  why  are  they  not  immutable?); 10 b) the general problem of change , which, as will be seen, is not a 'causal' problem,  but  a  'conditional'  one  (under  what  conditions  does language change tend to occur?), 11 and c) the historical problem of such a determined change . 12 (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :65-66; my bold)

10 Note that this is a philosophical question concerning the theory of language, which for Coseriu, as we have already seen, cannot be autonomous from philosophy.

11 This is therefore a problem of general linguistics.

12 A question that naturally concerns historical linguistics.

## Scandinavian Studies in Language, 14(12), 2023 (1-27)

| a)   | Theory of language (and philosophy   | Rational problem of change: theoretical problem of language mutability   | Why do languages change? Why are they not immutable?     |
|------|--------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------|
| b)   | Universal linguistics                | General problem of change                                                | Under what conditions do language changes usually occur? |
| c)   | Historical linguistics               | Historical problem relating to a determined change                       | What led to the future Romance languages?                |

Figure 4. The three problems of linguistic change in relation to the three types of science established by Coseriu

The three types of problems regarding linguistic change are correlated with three different types of scientific questions - as can be seen more clearly in Figure 4, above - and thus with three different types of sciences. Rather than focusing on the boundary between historical and universal linguistics, or that between historical linguistics and the theory of language, Coseriu was  primarily  concerned  with  avoiding  confusion  between  the rational perspective - pertaining to philosophy and the theory of language - and the general perspective, pertaining to general linguistics:

Indeed, the second problem is a problem of what is known as 'general linguistics'; and, since there is no 'general linguistics per se, except as a generalisation of the results of historical linguistics, this problem is a generalisation of certain aspects of the problems of the third type [...]; equally, the solution is a generalisation of several solutions of historically concrete problems and, in turn, an accumulation of what is known about historical facts, it offers hypotheses for the solution of  new  concrete  problems.  In  contrast,  the  first  problem  is  the theoretical  problem  of  the mutability  of  languages ; and,  as a theoretical problem, it certainly depends on knowledge of the 'facts', for  every  theory  is  a  theory  of  experience  (i.e.  of  the  real),  but  its solution  is  by  no  means  a  mere  generalisation  of  several  partial solutions. (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :66)

However,  in  relation  to  the  third  objective  of  this  study  (see  Section  2 above), what  is interesting with respect to  the  symbiosis  between philosophy and linguistics in Coseriu's work is that the raison d'être of the differentiation between the rational problem of the mutability of linguistic change and the general problem of linguistic change is due, once again, to an epistemological conviction. In fact, for Coseriu, the theoretical problem of the mutability of languages is

- (1) a  pre-existing  problem,  and  its  solution  depends  on  the  correct approach to problems of type b and c .  The approach taken, as is necessarily the case in human sciences, 'is based on the original knowledge about  language,  i.e.  on  the  knowledge,  prior  to  all science,  that  man  has  of  himself'. (Coseriu  1958/1988 3 :66;  my italics) 13

In  this  regard,  it  would  be  safe  to  say  that  for  Coseriu  the  mistake  of confusing this theoretical problem with a problem of universal linguistics derives from what he identifies as a fundamental confusion: that between human sciences and natural sciences (see López Serena 2019a: Chapters 1 and 2):

- (2) 'One of the errors that most afflict linguistics' - and which also 'stems'  from  considering  languages  as things and  'from  the confusion between human sciences and natural sciences' - is the desire to reduce theoretical (rational) problems to merely general problems '. (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :66-67; my italics) 14

Along with the differentiation between the rational problem and the general problem of linguistic  change,  based  on  his  epistemological  convictions, Coseriu established another differentiation between the theory of language and general linguistics, which can be found in the 'Preliminary Note' to the Spanish edition of the Lecciones de lingüística general (see Coseriu 1981) and, as is common knowledge, establishes a differentiation between the theory of language and general linguistics:

13 Given that we will return to this quotation later, in order to facilitate its location, and despite the fact that its length did not require it, the text has been indented as in the previous chapter and, unlike the treatment given to other literal passages reproduced previously, it is identified with the number (1). Hereinafter, the same procedure will be followed when a paragraph following a given quotation should be referred back to. 14 To which he adds: In the case of linguistic change, this error consists in believing that the problem of the mutability of languages is solved by finding the 'cause', or all the alleged 'causes', of the many particular changes (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 : 66-67).

- (3) strictly speaking, ' in accordance with my epistemological convictions ', I should have called this book Lecciones de teoría del lenguaje y lingüística general (Lessons  in  Language Theory and General Linguistics) (Coseriu 1981:11; the non-binding italics are mine).

He  then  explains  that  he  did  not  do  so  'for  practical  reasons  and  as  a concession to tradition, as well as because the book also deals with other problems (in particular, the theory and historical interpretation of linguistics itself)' (Coseriu 1981:11; my italics). 15

## 3.3 Coseriu's philosophy of linguistics

As previously mentioned, one of my main hypotheses in relation to the interrelationship between linguistics and philosophy in Coseriu's work is that  the  vindication  of  differentiation  as  an  antidote  to  the  confusion, disorder,  and  chaos  that  impede  knowledge  is  indebted  not  to  his approaches to the philosophy of language but to his incursions into the philosophy of linguistics. Regarding this aspect, I agree with Bota, who states that

la  dimension déterminante du travail philosophique de Coseriu est d'ordre épistémologique, et sous-tend l'ensemble de sa conception. (Bota 2008:5) 16

15 That Coseriu attached great importance to the discussion of the epistemological foundations of the various linguistic trends and methodologies is also evident in his opposition to many of Chomsky's postulates, or when, in his Panorama de la lingüística iberoamericana [Panorama of Ibero-American linguistics] (1840-1965) - first published in English under the title 'General perspectives' (see Coseriu 1968) - he complained about the scant interest that Spanish-American and Brazilian linguistics had devoted to these questions.

16 The full text of the excerpt from which this quotation is taken is as follows: 'Coseriu n'a pas fait de la philosophie un objet en soi, il ne l'a jamais professée en qualité de philosophe, mais en qualité de 'scientifique du langage', lui accordant un statut opérationne. Plus précisément, la philosophie a eu pour lui un rôle instrumental, à la fois dans la détermination du statut de l' objet de la science (le langage) et dans la détermination du statut de la démarche scientifique elle-même (la science du langage).

This is why I believe we must turn to Coseriu's philosophy of linguistics in search of the origin of some of the differentiations that will be of interest in  what  remains  in  this  paper.  In  this  regard,  passages  such  as  the  one reproduced in (3) enable us to understand that Coseriu's solid commitment to differentiate comes from his epistemological convictions. In these brief statements of barely a line-and-a-half of text, it seems evident that Coseriu is  alerting  us  to the  role  that  his  epistemological convictions play in his relentless delimitative activity, convictions that were the principal reason he was not satisfied with the title Lecciones de lingüística general and, therefore,  the  raison  d'être  for  the  differentiation  between  the  theory  of language (in  German Sprachtheorie ) -which concerns everything universal and necessary in language (e.g. Coseriu's universal semanticity, alterity, historicity, etc.) -and general linguistics (in German Sprachwissenschaft ),  which  is  responsible  for  the  study  of  everything general in languages (see Figure 4 above).

However, what exactly are Coseriu's epistemological convictions? As argued in López Serena (2019a), Coseriu's phenomenological stance can be accommodated within the hermeneutic perspective of the philosophy of science, an approach that in contemporary linguistics is still current in the work of authors such as Finnish linguist Esa Itkonen, whose approaches are compared to those of Coseriu in López Serena (2009). 17 The  distinguishing  feature  of  hermeneutic  epistemology  is  the  need  to sharply  differentiate  between  human  sciences  and  natural  sciences,  a differentiation which Coseriu often invokes. 18

Ce rôle est fondamental et permanent, dans la mesure où pour l'auteur il n'y a pas de même quand cette philosophie reste inconsciente ou n'est admise que partiellement.

science sans philosophie, même quand la science prétend s'en dégager complètement, C'est pourquoi la dimension déterminante du travail philosophique de Coseriu est d'ordre épistémologique, et sous-tend l'ensemble de sa conception ' (Bota, 2008: 5; my bold) [Coseriu did not make philosophy an object in itself, he never professed it as a philosopher, but as a 'scientist of language', and gave it an operational status . More precisely, philosophy played an instrumental role for him, both in determining the status of the object of science (language) and in determining the status of the scientific process itself (the science of language). This role is fundamental and permanent, insofar as for the author there is no science without philosophy, even when science claims to be completely free of it, even when philosophy remains unconscious or is only partially admitted. This is why the determining dimension of Coseriu's philosophical work is epistemological and underlines the whole of his conception ].

17 See now López Serena (in press).

The philosophical-scientific differentiation between the two types of sciences  by  authors  who  defend  the  need  to  take  this  distinction  into account is based on two fundamental rationales: the different nature of the object of study and the different types of knowledge that characterise the two sciences. In this regard, determining the specific nature of language as an  object  of  study  of  human  sciences  proper  is  essential  to  understand Coseriu's philosophical-linguistic thinking. In fact, both in his work and in that of the hermeneutic philosophers of science, the answer to the question (i) what kind of object is language, also decides (ii) what kind of science is linguistics and (iii) what kind of explanation is considered legitimate in a kind of linguistics that is understood as part of human sciences.

As  second-order  knowledge,  and  as  philosophising  applied  to  the field  of  linguistic  theorising  (see  López  Serena  2019a:  Chapter  1),  the philosophy of linguistics is a knowledge that approaches the study of both the  theory  of  language  and  general  linguistics  from  a  higher  level  of abstraction than linguistics - and, consequently, the raison d'être for this differentiation can only be epistemological. Thus, the last two questions listed  above  belong  to  its  field  of  action:  (ii)  what  kind  of  science  is linguistics and (iii) what kind of explanation is considered legitimate in the discipline - as well as related issues such as what kind of relationship is established between the subject and the object of research in linguistics and, consequently, what kind of epistemic activities linguists employ in the research process, given the simultaneous condition of being the subject and object of research.

That linguists are faced with this double condition of subject-object of research, from which they cannot escape, was obvious to Coseriu. This was already highlighted in the passage from Sincronía, diacronía e historia reproduced in (1), which states that the answer to rational or theoretical issues  such  as  language  mutability  has  to  be  based  on  the  'original knowledge' about language. This is also highlighted in the following two extracts from Forma y sustancia en los sonidos del lenguaje (Form and substance in the sounds of language) and 'General perspectives', respectively.

18 Note, in this respect, the content of citation (2): One of the errors that most afflict linguistics -and which also stems from considering languages as 'things' and from the confusion between human sciences and natural sciences - is the desire to reduce theoretical (rational) problems to merely 'general' problems (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 : 6667; my bold).

[T]he  linguist  cannot  avoid  the  fact  that  he  has  experience  of  the symbolic value of linguistic signs, because he himself is a speaking individual: the scientist cannot exclude himself as a speaker from his objective experience of linguistic facts. (Coseriu 1954/1973:142; my bold)

[T]he  DLM  [Department  of  Linguistics  of  Montevideo]  undertook  to elaborate a linguistic theory in accordance with the reality of language , in its functioning as well as in its historical development, a task undertaken by  Coseriu,  who  performed  it  simultaneously  with  his  critical  activity [omitted  note].  The  basic  principles  of  this  theory  are  that the  first condition of any linguistic theory is its adequacy to its object and that its basis must  necessarily be the 'original knowledge', i.e. the knowledge which man possesses about himself as a speaker. (Coseriu 1968:37; my bold)

In  his  defence  of  the  type  of  knowledge  specific  to  human  sciences,  in contrast to the natural sciences, I believe that the hermeneutic trend that should  be  ascribed  to  Coseriu  confronts  the  methodological  monism characteristic of positivist epistemology, which advocates the methodological unification of the sciences according to three fundamental hypotheses:

- (i) the  (same)  scientific  method  can  be  applied  to  all  fields  of knowledge for which one wishes to obtain fully justified knowledge;
- (ii) the unitary scientific method corresponds, ideally, to the paradigm of the physical sciences; and
- (iii) facts in any scientific field are to be the subject of deterministic or nomological-deductive causal explanations (Hempel & Oppenheim 1948), consisting in the reduction of individual facts to manifestations of universal laws.

However, Coseriu never uses the label methodological monism. Instead, he refers to the 'principle of naturalism':

[I]n accordance with the principle of naturalism, languages are considered, more or less explicitly, as if they were natural objects or organisms , endowed with their own 'evolution' [omitted note]. Consequently, we speak of the 'life' of languages and the 'life' of words, and of course these are often understood as metaphors ,  but metaphors also have their rationale and reflect a certain ideology . 19 So,  too,  we  speak  of  'mother  tongue'  and  'daughter  tongues',  of language  'families',  and  these  metaphors  become  widespread  and take root in everyday terminology outside linguistics.

By  the  same  token,  linguistic  facts  are  interpreted  from  the perspective of causality, and the question is asked, for example, what is the 'cause' of this or that linguistic change .  Thus, since 'evolution' is the basic problem, when it is observed in history that one moves from language state A to state B, the problem arises of the 'causes' which have determined this 'evolution'. In other words, it is not the production of languages, i.e. linguistic creativity as such and its historical objectification (the so-called 'change') that is considered the primary fact, but, in each case, the state of language, which like natural objects - without causes, should not change. As for the causes themselves, it is thought that they could be analogous to those found in the natural world, and there has even been talk of the influence of climate  and  geographical  environment  on  languages,  just  as,  in literary history, Hippolyte Taine sought to explain the development of  literature  by  various  determinations  and  influences,  including those of the geographical environment (but, fortuitously, also those of the social environment). (Coseriu 1981:48-49; my bold) 20

The principle  of  naturalism  means,  in  the  first  place  and  in  a general sense, that all  facts  are  reduced  to  the  type  of  natural facts [...]. Consequently, all facts - also those belonging to the human sphere proper, such as art or language - are considered subject to the principles of causality and necessity that apply in the world of nature. In other words, cultural facts are also considered as if they were natural facts that are due to 'causes' and governed by laws of necessity . The methodological corollary of this is that natural science is  taken  as  the  ideal  model  for  all  science  and  that  'naturalistic' approaches and methods are also applied to cultural facts. Therefore, what  is  sought  are  the  causes  of  the  facts  and  the  laws  of  their 'evolution', a legality of a natural kind, a requirement that is satisfied when the laws that determine and regulate the facts and, in particular, the laws of their development, are discovered. Moreover, in accordance with the principle formulated by Auguste Comte, ' savoir pour prévoir afin de pourvoir ' [prior knowledge in order to provide], it  is  believed that knowledge of the facts and generalisation would enable us to establish laws of a universal nature, which, in turn, would enable us to foresee future developments. Therefore, any science that is able to predict is considered to be properly so and to have reached its full maturity. (Coseriu 1981:40; my italics)

19 On the danger of naturalistic metaphors in diachronic historical linguistics, see López Serena (2014).

20 On the problem of causality in diachronic historical linguistics, see Hammarström (2013-14) and Winter-Froemel (2013-14).

## 4. A philosophical-scientific approach to Sincronía, diacronía e historia

Without losing sight of the aim of analysing which aspects of Coseriu's linguistic thinking have their origin in questions of a philosophical nature, I believe it is important to highlight how the two previous assertions, which come  from Lecciones  de  lingüística  general ,  coincide  exactly  with  the criticisms Coseriu makes of naturalism in Sincronía, diacronía e historia , the  work  that  probably  constitutes  his  most  complete  epistemological treatise. Thus, in relation to the confusion between the rational question and the general question about linguistic change discussed earlier, Coseriu states that the reason why both are presented in seemingly identical terms:

is  due  [...]  in  part  to  general  terminological  deficiencies  in  human sciences,  which  so  often  adopt  the  vocabulary  and  expressions  of natural  sciences.  And,  above  all,  it  is  due  to  the  identification  or confusion between the two problems, which, in turn, is rooted in the same naturalistic attitude towards language. (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :111; my bold)

According  to  Coseriu,  this  same  naturalistic  attitude  can  be  detected  in Saussure's 'Durkheimian sociologism', a doctrine, in his opinion, impregnated 'with the Schleicherian conception of languages as 'natural organisms'';  hence,  he  states  that  'Saussure's  sociologistic  conception appears in many cases as a translation in sociological terms of Schleicher's naturalistic  conception'  (Coseriu  1958/1988 3 :42).  The  same  naturalistic conception was also the basis of the two fundamental flaws that Coseriu denounces in his review of how structuralism approached the problem of linguistic change:

[T]he way structuralism has approached the problem involves two fundamental flaws that reveal the full weight of its naturalistic tradition.  First,  the  confusion  between  the  general  empirical problem of change and the rational problem of the mutability of languages :  the  belief  that  the  various  partial  explanations  could contribute to solving the problem of 'why languages change', which is impossible, since, as we have seen, it is a problem of a different order and of a different nature. Second, the error of believing that the positivist problem of 'causes' is still being posed, whereas in reality the problem of the general conditions and modalities of change , i.e. a problem of generalised and formalised history, is being posed. (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :211; my bold)

The  extent  to  which  the  error  of  approaching  the  problem  of  linguistic change  in  causal  terms  -  an  error  that  transcends  the  boundaries  of structuralism - is inherited from the reviled principle of naturalism is made even clearer by the following passage:

Cultural  and  functional  explanations  of  change  are  by  no  means 'causal'. The  very idea of 'causality' in so-called language 'evolution' is a residue of the old conception of languages as 'natural organisms',  as  well  as  of  the  positivist  dream  of  discovering  the supposed 'laws' of language (or of languages) and of transforming linguistics into a 'science of laws' analogous to the physical sciences. (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :178)

However, as previously highlighted, in contrast to methodological monism, or  the  principle  of  naturalism,  which  is  characteristic  of  a  positivist philosophy of science, Coseriu's anti-positivism gives rise to the principle of culture , or,

- (4) more  precisely, the  differentiation  between  natural  objects  and cultural objects and, consequently, between the natural sciences and the cultural sciences .  In other words, natural sciences are no longer accepted as the model for science in general , but it is understood that

sciences, precisely in order to be considered as such, must be different, ACCORDING TO THE NATURE OF THEIR OBJECT. (Coseriu 1981:67-68; original italics; my bold)

Due to the different nature of the object of study of natural sciences and human sciences and the different relationship that the subject of research establishes with these objects, for advocates of hermeneutics, the type of explanation used in one or the other must also, necessarily, be dissimilar. In relation to the manifestly unequal nature of the objects of study in human sciences, as opposed to natural sciences, it should be highlighted that while human phenomena have an eminently normative (social) nature - whose rules it is perfectly possible to violate - natural laws are necessities. Hence, counterexamples are not conceived as violations of the rules but refutations of the laws. Therefore, opposition is based on (i) the universal character of natural phenomena - subject to laws of 'causality' and 'necessity' and therefore susceptible to 'prediction' - as opposed to the human historical condition, where 'freedom' or free will to abide by or violate the rules and 'finalist',  not  causalist,  'explanations'  prevail.  In  turn,  the  'different relationship between the subject and object' of research in the two types of science are independent in natural sciences and coincide in human sciences, where humans are both the subject and object of research. Consequently, the procedure ('epistemic activities') required to attain knowledge in the natural sciences, which is usually that of observation ,  is  not  necessarily relevant in the case of the human sciences, which often rely on intuition . In summary, the three oppositions mentioned above would give rise to Figure 5:

Figure 5. The opposition between natural and human sciences

|                                        | NATURALSCIENCES                                                     | HUMANSCIENCES                                                                  |
|----------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| NATURE OF THE OBJECT OF STUDY          | natural objects, universal in nature                                | human objects of a historic- normative (social) nature, endowed with free will |
| TYPE OF LAWS/RULES THEY ARE SUBJECT TO | universal laws of causality- necessity, which facilitate prediction | historical norms or rules that can be violated                                 |
| SUBJECT-OBJECT RESEARCH RELATIONSHIP   | independent                                                         | coincident                                                                     |
| CHARACTERISTIC TYPES OF EXPLANATIONS   | causalist                                                           | finalist                                                                       |
| PROTOTYPICAL EPISTEMIC ACTIVITIES      | observation                                                         | intuition                                                                      |

In relation to the intimate relationship, which, according to Coseriu, exists between philosophy and linguistics, it is important to highlight how the entire  exposition  and  argumentation  with  which  Coseriu  constructs  his theory  of  linguistic  change  are  structured  in  accordance  with  the  three fundamental differentiations stated above. Thus, for example, with regard to the need to make a clear differentiation between human sciences and natural sciences, in addition to Coseriu's statement in (4), he also states:

To all causalist attitudes and the confusions they imply, we must oppose  the  differentiation  -  clearly  established  since  Kant  between  the  'world  of  necessity'  and  the  'world  of  freedom' . Equally, to the declared or undeclared attempts of the old and new positivism to reduce all science to physical science, we must oppose the fundamental diversity between natural and cultural facts and, therefore, between physical and human sciences. This does not imply any disdain for the physical sciences which, naturally, are the only ones suited to their object. However, it does imply understanding that their  postulates  and  methods  (except  for  what  concerns  material description) are not applicable to cultural objects, since in the latter what is exact, what is positive, what is actually given and verified, are freedom and intentionality, invention, creation and free adoption, motivated only finalistically. In natural phenomena it is undoubtedly  appropriate  to  look  for  an  external  necessity,  or causality ;  in  cultural  phenomena,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is appropriate to look for an internal necessity, or finality . (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :193-194; original italics; my bold)

The following statement is also of interest with regard to the rejection of causal explanations and the possibility of prediction in human sciences:

Fundamentally, the perplexity in the face of linguistic change and the tendency  to  consider  it  as  a  spurious  phenomenon,  caused  by 'external factors', are due to the fact that we start from abstract - and therefore static - language, separated from speaking and considered as  a  thing  made,  as  ergon,  without  even  asking  ourselves  what languages  really  are  and  how  they  exist  and  what  'change'  in  a language really means. Hence, the posing of the problem of change in  causal  terms,  since  changes  in  'things'  detached  from  the intentionality of every subject are attributed, specifically, to 'causes'.

However, language does not belong to the causal order but  to  the final order (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :29; original italics).

As  observed  from  earlier  statements,  Coseriu's  differentiation  between human  sciences  and  natural sciences is not only important as an epistemological  differentiation,  separate  from  his  linguistics,  but  is  also fundamental precisely because it determines the way in which questions of language theory and universal linguistics are approached. Moreover, apart from  the  differentiation  between  causality  versus  finality,  as  previously highlighted, for Coseriu the specificity of human sciences also resides in the close link between the subject and the object of research. Lastly, as regards the epistemic activities specific to human sciences, which Coseriu occasionally refers to 21 as original knowledge, eidetic reduction, intuition, or  grasping  the  obvious,  I  believe  the  following  passages,  again  from Coseriu's  linguistic  work, Sincronía,  diacronía  e  historia , may  be  of interest:

[I]n linguistics, as in all human sciences, the foundation must be, and is, the ' original knowledge ' that man has about himself. (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :182; my bold)

[I]n  human  sciences,  that  which  is  presented  to  the  conscience  as evidence , far from being dismissed as 'sans portée', must be taken as the basis for research. (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :41; my bold)

[W]ith regard to cultural objects, eidetic knowledge is  necessarily primary (prior to empirical study) since it is constitutive of the objects as such. (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :191; my bold)

[T]here is no room for hypotheses in human sciences with regard to the  universal.  The  place  of  hypotheses  in  the  physical  sciences  is taken  in  human  sciences by  the  natural  knowledge  that  man possesses about his activities and the objects that he himself has created . (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :191; my bold)

Purpose, as 'subjective causality', can only be known ( recognised ) subjectively, by means of an internal experience , since it is not an externally verifiable fact. Therefore, the problem to be posed in each particular case is not: 'why [by what empirically objective circumstances] did such a change occur?', but: 'for what [purpose] would I, having at my disposal such and such a given system and being in such and such historical circumstances, change A into B, abandon element C or create element D?' 22 [In note: […] This is not only the case with changes, but with all linguistic facts, which can only  be  understood  as  such  by  means  of  an  inner  reinterpretation [....]]. Moreover: not only must this be done, but it can be said that, in reality, and under any causalist terminology, it is done and has been done in every case in which the problem of a particular change has been meaningfully and essentially correctly posed. (Coseriu 1958/1988 3 :205-206 and 206, n. 45; my bold)

21 As in quotation (1) above.

## 5. Conclusions

I  believe  that  in  light  of  this  collection  of  selected  quotations,  it  is impossible to harbour even the slightest doubt about the fact, which for me of  course  is  obvious,  that Sincronía,  diacronía  e  historia -  a  book  on linguistic theorising, and more specifically, on theorising about linguistic change - cannot be fully understood unless one is aware that, from the onset, the essential confusion that Coseriu aims to challenge concerns the philosophy of linguistics: the discipline that is specifically responsible for assessing  the  appropriateness  or  inappropriateness  of  applying  causalist approaches to certain objects of research. In fact, as seen above, Coseriu turns to epistemological reflections time and again in his most important work on linguistic change. He either insists on the error of approach and method that the causalist perspective promotes or advocates the differentiation  between  natural  sciences  and  human  sciences  and  the consequent application, in the latter, of a finalist perspective, or describes the epistemic activities of resorting to the original knowledge or intuition that the linguist has as a speaker of the language under study.

This leads me to venture two reflections. The first focuses on the question of to what extent it is possible to truly understand Coseriu without recognising  the  epistemological  foundations  on  which  his  linguistic theorising unfailingly rests. The second is a consequence of the first. Once the  need  to  become familiar with Coseriu's epistemological convictions has been established as a sine qua non condition to truly understand his linguistic thinking, to what extent is it possible for contemporary linguistics to vindicate the unquestionable value of his proposals, at a time when the discipline does not seem excessively interested in its own epistemological foundations?  And  lastly,  are  those  of  us  who  insist  on  highlighting  the relevance  and  excellence  of  his  approach  to  the  study  of  language condemned to preach in the wilderness?

22 For an application of this type of finalist analysis to the epistemological examination of the explanatory procedures characteristic of the theory of grammaticalisation, see Chapters 6 and 7 in López Serena (2019a).

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Araceli López Serena Scandinavian Studies in Language, 14(12), 2023 (1-27)

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