Hector-Neri Castañeda's philosophical methodology analyzes the construction of on-tological theories. This methodology assumes that there is a stage of philosophical activity, called protophilosophy, that consists of two steps: (i) the gathering of a collection of empirical data as comprehensive as possible and (ii) a careful exegesis of the collected data. Step (ii) aims at guiding theory construction and theory testing through the explicit formulation of criteria of adequacy for theories (Castañeda 1980a: 102). The empirical data to be collected tend to be linguistic in nature. They have to do with our use of ordinary language in common practices of everyday life and scientific activity.¹