the nonmanifest—as what comes to the fore in the nonmanifest itself, and radiates from it in such a way that what is nonmanifest is thought of as what is essentially never manifest, if this is so, then appearance is tantamount to production [Hervorbringung] or to what is produced [Hervorgebrachtes]. However, this does not constitute the real being of the producing or productive [Hervorbringenden], but is rather appearance in the sense of "mere appearance." What does the announcing and is brought forward indeed shows itself in such a way that, as the emanation of what it announces, it precisely and continually veils what it is in itself. But then again, this not-showing which veils is not semblance. Kant uses the term "appearance" in this twofold way. On the one hand, appearances are for him the "objects of empirical intuition," that which shows itself in intuition. This self-showing (phenomenon in the genuine, original sense) is, on the other hand, "appearance" as the emanation of something that makes itself known but conceals itself in the appearance.
Since a phenomenon is constitutive for "appearance" in the sense of announcing itself through a self-showing, and since this phenomenon can turn into semblance in a privative way, appearance can also turn into mere semblance. Under a certain kind of light someone can look as if he were flushed. The redness that shows itself can be taken [31] as announcing the presence of fever; this in turn would indicate a disturbance in the organism.
Phenomenon—the self-showing in itself-means a distinctive way something can be encountered. On the other hand, appearance means a referential relation in beings themselves such that what does the referring (the announcing) can fulfill its possible function only if it shows itself in itself—only it if is a "phenomenon." Both appearance and semblance are themselves founded in the phenomenon, albeit in different ways. The confusing multiplicity of "phenomena" designated by the terms phenomenon, semblance, appearance, and mere appearance, can be unraveled only if the concept of phenomenon is understood from the very beginning as the self-showing in itself.
But if in the way we grasp the concept of phenomenon we leave undetermined which beings are to be addressed as phenomena, and if we leave altogether open whether the self-showing is actually a particular being or a characteristic of the being of beings, then we are dealing solely with the formal concept of phenomenon. If by the self-showing we understand those beings that are accessible, for example, through empirical intuition in Kant's sense, then the formal concept of phenomenon can be used legitimately. In this usage phenomenon has the meaning of the vulgar concept of phenomenon. But this vulgar concept is not the phenomenological concept of phenomenon. In the horizon of the Kantian problematic what is understood phenomenologically by the