Immanence

General Definition

In philosophy, immanence designates the condition according to which all processes and realities are contained within the very plane of existence, without the need for a beyond, a transcendental essence, or a principle external to the world. It opposes transcendence and affirms the self-sufficiency of the real.

Ontological Variations in the Ontology of Emergent Complexity

Immanence as Expression of Matter

Everything that exists emerges and reorganizes within unstable matter. Immanence is the philosophical name for non-closure — there is no exterior to the real, only planes of complexity.

Immanence as Ethical Foundation

Responsibility is not anchored in a transcendental absolute, but in the symbolic capacity to reorganize the sensible. The ethics of the OCE arises from commitment to the real as a common field.

Immanence and Aesthetics of Emergence

Eliminating transcendence does not impoverish the aesthetic experience — it liberates it. Immanence sustains an aesthetics of incompleteness, listening, and the emergence of the possible.

Immanence as Principle of Symbolic Production

Immanence, in the OCE, is the name for operative creativity without external origin: everything emerges from internal reorganizations of unstable matter, without a prior model. Symbolic production does not require external foundation — it is a local effect of internal tensions and reconfigurations.

Immanence as Support for Non-Teleology

Immanence prevents any finalist or providential reading of matter. Everything that transforms does so through local effects, without inscribed finality. The OCE replaces the idea of a plan with fields of immanent possibility, where what emerges is what becomes possible — not what was foreseen.