Signs of Immanence in Husserl and Spinoza

by Corry Shores
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For Husserl, perception reaches the physical thing itself, without mediation through appearances. In other words, the appearance of something does not give an image of it, but gives that thing itself. Thus, something’s appearing to us does not serve as a sign indicating that there is some more fundamental substrate of reality. The substrate (the empty X) of an object is its appearing, and hence the sign for the object and the object itself are one in the same (§§40, 43).

Likewise, in Spinoza, the sign is immanent to its substance.

Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book. General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Transl. Fred Kersten. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982.