“Immanence”: A Philosophical Buzzword? Between the Critique of Immanence and the Immanent Critique

The “viral” diffusion of the concept of immanence in the philosophical and cultural panorama risks to make it become a buzzword with “contagious” effects, capable of generating a conceptual pathology or dysfunctionality. Undoubtedly, “immanence” is a valid concept, especially on the logic-metaphysical level; however, from a political or social point of view, it has aroused various perplexities. Therefore, in this paper, I discuss some of the basic ideas of a possible “critique of immanence” (§ 1), and then I highlight the outlines of the perspective of the “immanent critique” (§ 3). Finally, I suggest that we can find a possible solution to the tensions between immanence and transcendence if we pose the problem on an anthropological or anthropological-philosophical level (§ 3).