Rene Thom , Esquisse d'une Semiophysique.

Instead of establishing Geometry on Logic, it is a question of establishing Logic within Geometry. Thus, we produce an overall scheme of a world made of emergences and pregnances: emergences are respectively impenetrable objects; pregnances are hidden qualities, efficient virtues that, emanating from source forms, impregnate themselves with other emerging forms and produce visible (figurative) effects. 1
Rene Thom

Thom equates the figurative with the 'visible' (experienceable) effects produced through the inter-impregnation of the hidden qualities of source forms (emergences). The action responsible for this does not implicate the final essense of the things we perceive. Rather, it reveals their ability to enter into the intelligibility/operability of our world 'at hand.' The relationship between essential nature and consciousness is the sole implication. We might say that the relationship itself is that action. Essential nature remains the impenetrable ground which (paradoxically) opens (through our perceptual limitation of its infinite quality) a complex range of possible meanings. 2 Thom's position defines a metaphysic.

Figuration, in the abstract, defines the meaningful organization of material into discrete entities. Perceptually, this occurs prior to its appropriation by the conceptual categories of the intellect. Material organization disposes/composes meanings which are prior to any reconstitution of them through the re-presenting mechanisms of discursive thought.
Figuration provides the basis for the interrelation of simple figures into complexities that retain significance as wholes. This retention withstands the experiential difficulties of possible internal states of difference or contradiction which may exist between parts.

1 Rene Thom, Esquisse d'une Semiophysique. (Paris: Intereditions, 1988).
2 My interpretation of Thom is based on understanding that the impenetrability he speaks of implies that emergences are absolute simples which reveal themselves (emerge) as and what they are. The previous quotation makes sense to me only if this is in fact the case. Only if emergences are understood as abstract points without character, can they exist as objects-in-themselves and not exhibit figural ‘effects.’