Current conceptual frameworks differ deeply on the meanings of human-natural environment relations. One is a monist social constructionist frame: meaning is only in human definitions, and natural events are meaningless. The other offers dualist perspectives that locate meaning both in definitions and in realist indications of environmental events such as global environmental change. After discussing ‘landscape’ as a bridging concept, I suggest an ordering of the two perspectives through a metatheoretical distinction between definitional and responsive meanings with primacy in the (...) response. Finally, I apply a metatheoretical schema based on the work of George H. Mead to meanings of natural environment implicated in a discussion of an official pronouncement, ‘The drought is over’. (shrink)

After having presented briefly the life and work of José Ortega y Gasset, it is shown that it is human life as ultimate reality and meaning that predominates in his thought, and the various treatment that Ortega y Gasset makes of this notion is explained. Résumé: Après avoir présenté rapidement la vie et l'oeuvre de José Ortega y Gasset, l'A. montre que c'est la vie humaine qui prédomine dans sa pensée comme réalité et signification ultimes, et explique le traitement varié (...) que fait Ortega y Gasset de cette notion. (shrink)