ciding to put one foot in front of the other. When we dwell on
our decision to take a particular step and tell ourselves that we
follow rules not automatically but thoughtfully, we deliber-
ately remove ourselves from what rule-following is actually
like. Such articulation makes a theatrical gesture where, usu-
ally, none is required. As Husserl argues, expression occurs
prior to any “speaking to oneself.”
In Husserl’s interpretation, when I use emphatic declara-
tions in solitary mental life—“you have gone wrong”—I in-
dulge in an imaginary performance, since the thought I am
dramatizing cannot possibly be obscure to me. But when I in-
teract with other people, the performance is real, since I am at
times unclear to them, and they to me. (Freud, of course, ar-
gues that the central region of mental life, the unconscious, re-
mains profoundly inaccessible to the self. But Husserl remains
loyal to consciousness, seeing it as the basis of all thinking.) In
the case of solitary thinking, then, meaning resides in the ex-
pression, before anything else. In social life, however, meaning
depends on indication as well as expression: on what other
people make of what we say and do. When we try to figure
someone out on the basis of limited evidence, we rely on indi-
cation. But the fact that we can still mean something without
engaging in indication shows that there is a contrasting ex-
pressive side to language. For Husserl, again, expression does
not require verbal signs. When I am asked to tell someone
what I am thinking, the frequent sense of strain, of having to
translate a thought forcibly into verbal form, shows that I ex-
press myself in solitude in a more intimate way than can easily
be captured in words.
Derrida argues that all expression, including conscious,
solitary meditation, is a form of indication: that thinking
52 From Algeria to the École Normale