Who is Tesauro? The man, words and things

The purpose of this article is to discuss some social and epistemic questions that seek to understand the role of Emanuele Tesauro for the Knowledge Organization (KO). The methodological approach is based in the historical and epistemological reflection, interested in understanding the elaboration and repercussion of concepts in KO. The analysis combines a diachronic historical-epistemological background with a synchronic theoretical-critical approach. It is not, therefore, a historical and remote assumption, but a study that discusses relevant theoretical approaches to KO in historical time. Specifically, the study demarcates the relevance of the Tesauro’s theory in KO. Recognizing Emanuele's thinking as fundamentally a critique of language in its distinct statutes, from logic to rhetoric, the paper indicate that Tesauro constitutes a theory of discourse and a methodological process to substantiate the application of this theory, an index of categories and their relations. In turn, the future instrument known as the "thesaurus" responds, in part, to the Tesaurian proposal, but subverting the combinatorial range of its discursive-rhetorical influence.