The Principle of Immanence as the foundation of the Epistemology of Semiotics

Abstract

This paper show how immanence is the main concept inherited by semiotics from structuralism and how questioning the concept of immanence in semiotics means calling into question not only the idea structure but, more profoundly, the epistemology of semiotics itself. We will start from Hjelmslev, trying to overcome some common myths associated with the triad immanence/transcendence/manifestation and we will try to show how all the criticisms that have recently been made to the concept of immanence are in fact criticisms concerning a particular way of interpreting it coming from generative semiotics, that represents a misunderstanding of the thinking of the founding fathers of structuralism. We will propose later some rereading of saussurian and hjelmslevian ideas that will lead us to formulate a conception of structure as an heteronomous entity of internal and external dependencies. Finally, we will draw some conclusions, trying to show how this idea of structure allows us to integrate the “planes of immanence” model by Jacques Fontanille.