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Cont Philos Rev (2010) 43:97110

DOI 10.1007/s11007-010-9133-x

Expressivity and performativity: Merleau-Ponty

and Butler
Silvia Stoller

Published online: 10 April 2010

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract Until now post-structuralism and phenomenology are widely regarded

as opposites. Contrary to this opinion, I am arguing that they have a lot in common.
In order to make my argument, I concentrate on Judith Butlers poststructuralist
concept of performativity to confront it with Maurice Merleau-Pontys phenomenological concept of expressivity. While Butler claims that phenomenological
theories of expression are in danger of essentialism and thus must be replaced by
non-essentialist theories of performativity, I hold that Merleau-Pontys concept of
expressivity must strictly be understood in anti-essentialist terms. Following this
line of interpretation, expressivity and performativityas well as phenomenology and post-structuralismare not opposites but partners in the search for an
anti-essentialist gender concept. Consequently, feminist phenomenology turns out to
be a non-essentialist approach that combines phenomenological and post-structural
insights.
Keywords Judith Butler
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Performativity

Expressivity
Gender
Essentialism
Phenomenology
Post-structuralism

One of the most recent developments in phenomenology and feminist philosophy is

called feminist phenomenology. One of the main characteristics of feminist
phenomenology is to regard phenomenology as a helpful resource for feminist
philosophy (cf. Stoller et al. 2005). Merleau-Ponty is one of the main resources in this
respect. Nevertheless, until now, poststructuralist feminism is especially widely
regarded as an opposite to phenomenology. The aim of the paper is to show how
close phenomenology and poststructuralism are to each other. For this purpose, I will
S. Stoller (&)
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA
e-mail: silvia.stoller@univie.ac.at

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focus on Judith Butlers theory of performativity in Gender Trouble (1990) and other
early writings (1988) to confront it with Maurice Merleau-Pontys theory of
expression in his Phnomnologie de la perception (1945). Butler rejects the notion
of expression, because for her it pretends to refer to a pre-existing gender that is
finally expressed in acts. Instead of using a concept of expression, she prefers to use a
concept of performativity because in her opinion the latter is free of gender
essentialism in as much as gender is only constituted by performative acts, acts which
are performed. However, the following question arises: Is every philosophical
concept of expression intrinsically in danger of gender essentialism and thus
incompatible with poststructuralist gender theories based on a concept of performativity? I will argue that this is definitely not the case. Introducing Merleau-Pontys
phenomenological concept of expression, as developed in his Phenomenology of
Perception, I will show that expression can also be understood in anti-essentialist
terms, for expression is by its very definition the realization of meaning in the act
of expression. Following this line of interpretation, expressivity and performativity are not opposites but partners in the search for an anti-essentialist gender concept.
Thus, the extraordinary similarity between Butler and Merleau-Ponty in this respect
can be read not only as a sign for the current applicability of Merleau-Pontys
phenomenology in general but also as a sign for the current applicability of the
Phenomenology of Perception in particular. I will first introduce Butlers theory of
performativity (1), followed by an outline of Merleau-Pontys phenomenological
theory of expression (2), and I will finally, by way of comparison, come to the
conclusion (3) that Butler is falsely identifying the phenomenological theory of
expression with essentialism.

1 Butlers early theory of performativity

Performativity is a key concept in Butlers poststructuralist concept of gender. She first
introduced it in the late 1980s, 2 years before Gender Trouble. Since then
performativity has played a central role not only in Gender Trouble (Butler 1990)
but also in other texts of the 1990s, such as Bodies that Matter (Butler 1995) and
Excitable Speech (Butler 1997). In Gender Trouble Butler is arguing that gender is
performatively produced by way of regulatory practices (Butler 1990, p. 24). In
Bodies that Matter she goes on deepening her argument of the performative
construction of gender, but now focusing on the issue of the materiality of the body.
As she writes in her introduction, her focus is on the relation between gender
performativity and the concept of materialization (Butler 1993, p. 2). While Butler
in Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter primarily focuses on gender performativity,
in Excitable Speech she applies her concept of performativity to language in general.
In particular, she deals with the performativity of hate speech, that is to say, with the
performativity of political discourses: As much as this text seeks to understand the
particularities of recent arguments concerning hate speech, it also seeks to outline a
more general theory of the performativity of political discourse (Butler 1997, p. 40).
But another text deserves our attention, namely her early article Performative
Acts and Gender Constitution from 1988. For several reasons, this text is of special

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interest. First, in this article Butler is explicitly concerned with phenomenology,

especially with Simone de Beauvoirs phenomenologically oriented existentialism,
and with Merleau-Pontys phenomenology of the body in his Phenomenology of
Perception. Second, in this article, Butler is concerned with the relation between
phenomenology and feminism. And as the subtitle indicates, she identifies her study
as an Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory, asking How useful is a
phenomenological point of departure for a feminist description of gender? (Butler
1988, p. 522), and thus opens the field for something that a little later on became
known as feminist phenomenology.1 Third, in her article Performative Acts and
Gender Constitution Butler introduces the importance of performativity for a
theory of gender, two years before Gender Trouble came out. As such, this text
becomes especially important for any analysis that is concerned with her
development of the key concept of performativity. As she announces at the very
beginning, she wants to show that what is called gender identity is a performative
accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo (Butler 1988, p. 520).
Finally, it is here that Butler explicitly reflects upon the difference between
performativity and expressivity which is noteworthy in this paper. Thus, it is this
text which helps us to understand how Butler conceives the difference between
performativity and expressivity and which leads us to the question of the difference
or compatibility between the poststructuralist theory of performativity and the
phenomenological concept of expressivity. For the reasons mentioned I will confine
myself primarily to this text. However, the rejection of an expressive model in
general is present in all her publications: it might refer to behavior in general or to
cross-dressing in particular, as in Body that Matter (1993, p. 309).
As already mentioned, Butlers theory of performativity is mainly bound up with
a theory of gender. This is also the case with her article Performative Acts and
Gender Constitution. Butlers main thesis in this article consists in the claim that
gender is a performative act. That gender is a performative act means that it comes
into existence in the very moment of its performance. Gender reality is
performative which means, quite simply, that it is real only in the extent that it is
performed (1988, p. 527). Given that gender is real only in the extent that it is
performed, Butlers theory of gender can be characterized as a theory of gender in
statu nascendia theory of gender in the state of coming into existence. The
following argument is crucial for her understanding of gender: If gender comes into
existence only in the very moment of its performative constitution, then gender is
not something prior to its performative acts. It is this argument that makes Butlers
theory of gender performativity an anti-essentialist approach.
For Butler, neither biological sex nor an interior self does pre-exist gender: If
gender attributes and acts, the various ways in which a body shows or produces its
cultural signification, are performative, then there is no preexisting identity by which
an act or attribute might be measured (1990, p. 141). If gender attributes [] are
performative, then these attributes effectively constitute the identity they are said to
1

It was Butler herself who already spoke in the 1980s of feminist phenomenology respectively of
phenomenological feminism, namely in her article Sexual Ideology and Phenomenological
Description. A Feminist Critique of Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of Perception (Butler 1989).

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express or reveal (Butler 1988, p. 528). As Butler some time later similarly says in
Gender Trouble, quoting Nietzsche: there is no being behind doing, effecting,
becoming; the doer is merely a fiction added to the deedthe deed is everything
(Butler 1990, p. 25).2 And There is no gender identity behind the expressions of
gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very expressions that are
said to be its results (ibid.).3 To put it in terms of expression, gender identities do not
exist prior to their expressions.
For this reason Butler distances herself from the theatrical sense of gender
performance. Although gender is always a doing (Butler 1990, p. 25), this doing
cant be mixed up with what an actor is doing on the stage, for the gendered subject
is not playing a role, he or she or any other gender does not express something that
would exist prior to its expression. Quoting Butler: As a consequence, gender
cannot be understood as a role which either expresses or disguises an interior self,
whether that self is conceived as sexed or not. As performance which is
performative, gender is an act, broadly construed, which constructs the social
fiction of its own psychological interiority (Butler 1988, p. 528). In an interview
Butler gave to Radical Philosophy in the summer of 1994, she emphasizes that it is
important to understand performativity as distinct from performance (Butler
1994, p. 33). She points out that it would be a terrible misrepresentation of what
she wanted to say, to claim that performativity had something to do with
performance in the theatrical sense (ibid.). First, it is important to distinguish
performance from performativity: the former presumes a subject, but the latter
contests the very notion of the subject.4 For this same reason Butler does not agree
with the sociologist Erving Goffman and his theory of interaction which posits a
self which assumes and exchanges various roles within the complex social
expectations of the game of modern life (Butler 1988, p. 528).
With respect to our aim, contributing to the relation between Butler and MerleauPonty, something else becomes important here. For this very reason Butler is critical of
phenomenological theories. As the theatrical sense of performativity fails to
understand gender as performative in the above described sense, phenomenology
sometimes appears to assume the existence of a choosing and constituting agent prior
to language (ibid., p. 519) and thus fails to understand gender as constituted through
constituting acts. Although phenomenology is based on the phenomenological theory

Cf. Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 9, p. 279: Es giebt kein Sein hinter dem Thun,
Wirken, Werken; der Thater ist zum Thun bloss hinzugedichtet,das Thun ist alles. In Bodies that
Matter Butler says: There is no I who stands behind discourse (Butler 1993, p. 225).

Note that Butler in Gender Trouble puts the word expressions under quotation marks, indicating her
skepticism for the concept of expression. However, in contrast to her article Performative Acts and
Gender Constitution Butler goes on with a discussion of Luce Irigarays notion of the feminine and thus
neglects to explicate her skepticism for the term expression (ibid.).

She adds that toward the beginning of her final chapter Critically Queer in Bodies that Matter she
was trying to clarify this (cf. Butler 1993, pp. 223242). Following the Althusserian term interpellation, she argues that the I only comes into being through being called, named, interpellated, and
this discursive constitution takes place prior to the I (ibid., p. 225).

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of acts, according to Butler it nevertheless presumes an agent that is prior to its acts.5
Seemingly, for the same reason, Butler claims that constitutive phenomenology is
based on individual assumptions.6 Since gender cant be conceived as only
individually constituted, a revision of the individual assumptions underlying the
more restricted view of constitution acts within phenomenological discourse is
required (ibid., p. 525). Although throughout her paper Butler seems to sympathize
with phenomenology and theatre and although she draws from theatrical and
phenomenological discourses in the course of making her argument, she clearly
distinguishes her approach both from theatrical and phenomenological models: In
opposition to theatrical and phenomenological models which take the gendered self to
be prior to its acts, I will understand constituting acts not only as constituting the
identity of the actor, but as constituting that identity as a compelling illusion, an object
of belief (ibid., p. 520).
While this sort of criticism is crucial, throughout the text another claim (which is
related to the former) comes into play, the claim that theories that deal with a concept
of expressivity suffer from the same problem: This implicit and popular theory of
acts and gestures as expressive of gender suggests that gender itself is something prior
to the various acts, postures, and gestures by which it is dramatized and known
(ibid., p. 528). By way of introducing the idea of expressivity in relation to the theory
of gender, Butler draws another distinction between her approach of gender
performativity and phenomenology, the distinction between expressivity and
performativity. As the following citation indicates, the concept of performativity
stands in opposition to the concept of expressivity. If gender attributes, however, are
not expressive but performative, then these attributes effectively constitute the
identity they are said to express or reveal. The distinction between expression and
performativeness is crucial. (Butler 1990, p. 141) Concepts of expressivity,
according to Butler, presuppose a subject that expresses its identity through
individual acts, habits or, for example, bodily gestures.7 Following such an
understanding, what is expressed is the result of a preexisting self that ex-presses
something from the inner to the outer. Femaleness, for example, seems to be an
unchangeable value possessed by a subject and then just simply transferred to the
outer. We are not only reminded of the out-dated model of human communication as
introduced by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver more than a half century ago
which is based on the idea of a one-way process between sender and receiver and a
ready-made message,8 but also of the classic theories of language based on
5

While Butler assigns Husserl and Merleau-Ponty to the more problematic approaches of phenomenology, she excludes Beauvoirs phenomenological philosophy, claiming that she is in an innovative way
appropriating and reinterpreting this doctrine of constituting acts from the phenomenological tradition
(1988, p. 519).

By individual assumptions Butler means not only individual acts performed by individual persons,
she adds acts by social groups such as families (Butler 1988, p. 526).

Also in Bodies that Matter Butler rejects the expressive model of drag, which holds that some interior
truth is exteriorized in performance (Butler 1993, p. 234). Cf. also: Counter to the notion that
performativity is the efficacious expression of a human will in language, this text seeks to recast
performativity as a specific modality of power as discourse (Butler 1993, p. 187).

Cf. Shannon and Weaver (1949).

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philosophy of consciousness. That such a concept of expressivity is totally unsuitable

for Butler becomes quite clear when she lets us know that she wants to go beyond an
expressive model of gender (which is the subtitle of the third section of her article).
Acts or the body express nothing (Butler 1988, p. 530), Butler clearly claims.
There is, in my view, nothing about femaleness that is waiting to be expressed
(ibid.). Politically seen, there is a good deal about diverse experiences of women that
is being expressed and still needs to be expressed, but caution is needed with
respect to that theoretical language, for it does not simply report a pre-linguistic
experience, but constructs that experience as well as the limits of its analysis (ibid.,
pp. 530531). Theories of expressivity that presuppose either a subject or an essence
to be expressed are, and this is Butlers final judgment, essentialist. With regard to
gender theory we must call it gender essentialism.
To fully understand Butlers theory of performativity another aspect must be
mentioned. Butler agrees with the British anthropologist Victor Turner that every
social action requires a performance which is repeated (ibid., p. 526).9 By
repetition she means the reenactment and reexperiencing of a set of meanings
already socially established (ibid.).10 Applied to gender, this means that
performing gender is both individual and public. Butler points out that the
performative must be conceived of as in the double framework of public action
and performative act. As a result, she concludes, gender is neither a choice nor
determined by social norms. As a public action and performative act, gender is not
a radical choice or project that reflects merely individual choice, but neither is it
imposed or inscribed upon the individual (ibid.).11 Thus, gender is something inbetween voluntarism and determinism. It is not voluntary because it depends on
cultural norms, and it is not determined because it requires performative acts. Butler
will strictly defend her in-between of voluntarism and determinism also in her later
work.12 (This neither-nor position must already let us think of Merleau-Pontys
philosophical strategy of neither-nor underlying his Phenomenology of Perception).
We have seen that, for Butler, performativity and expressivity are two different
concepts. Strictly speaking, expressivity works as an opposite to performativity. In
confronting performativity with expressivity she has worked out her preference of performativity over expressivity. In preferring performativity, expressivity
turns out to work only as a negative term. It can be called a negative term insofar as
it represents only the background from which her concept of performativity has
been developed. Insofar as expressivity in her eyes is a concept that doesnt
adequately describe the issue of gender or gender identity, it must be replaced by the
concept of performativity. With regard to the problem of gender essentialism Butler
concludes that the concept of expressivity is in full danger of essentialism, while the
9
10

Butler cites his work Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors (Turner 1974).
Cf. Butler (1990, p. 140) with almost the same words.

11

Please note that Butler in this passage explicitly rejects the poststructuralist view that culture is
inscribed upon the individual (ibid.).

12

See, for example, Bodies that Matter, where she is saying that construction is neither a single act nor
a causal process initiated by a subject and culminating in a set of fixed effects (Butler 1993, p. 10).
However, cf. Veronica Vasterling who is arguing that Butler has not freed herself from lingual
determinism (Vasterling 1999, 2001).

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concept of performativity is free of it. So if we take phenomenology as a philosophy

that implies a theory of expression, as in Merleau-Ponty and some other
phenomenological approaches, then we must say that phenomenology is in danger
of essentialism, if we follow Butlers argument. It is here that I want to turn to
Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of Perception. In the following, I will focus on his
theory of expression in order to examine whether his theory is based on the
assumption that something else pre-exists the expression and consequently must be
characterized as an essentialist concept.

2 Merleau-Pontys concept of expression

Merleau-Ponty was repeatedly concerned with language. Since his theory of language
is mostly linked with the theory of expression, it can be argued that his
phenomenological theory of expression plays a central role in his phenomenology.
It fruitfully starts in his Phenomenology of Perception and continues to be of highest
importance in his late works such as The Prose of the World or The Visible and the
Invisible, as well as in his collection of works entitled Signs. Now, in his
Phenomenology of Perception the chapter The Body in its Sexual Being (MerleauPonty 1962, pp. 154185) is of highest importance because it is here that he deals with
a notion of expression. In the following I will primarily refer to this chapter.
As I have previously mentioned, Butlers theory of performativity works for her
gender theory. To put it differently, Butler is primarily concerned with gender and
conceives it in terms of performativity. At this point, it seems necessary and also
interesting to note that although Merleau-Ponty had nothing explicit to say about
gender identity, the issues of sexual difference, not to mention the issue of gender
performativity, his reflections on expressivity simply arise during his considerations
on sexuality.13 It is intriguing that his theory of expression is closely linked to his
theory of sexual being (tre sexu). Moreover, his idea of expression plays an
important role in his theory of sexuality. The central thesis of his chapter The Body
in its Sexual Being is that sexuality expresses existence through bodily being
(Merleau-Ponty 1962, p. 166). However, while Butler primarily speaks of gender or
gender identity, Merleau-Ponty is primarily concerned with sexuality in a more
general way. The difference between sex and gender, one of the main topics of
Butlers philosophy in particular and of gender studies in general, is not something
13

Merleau-Ponty speaks of sexuality in general, without differentiating between female or male

sexuality or without taking into consideration that there are different gender identities. This was one of
the reasons why Merleau-Ponty earned substantial critique from feminist theorists. Nevertheless, it is
interesting to note that Butler although she speaks of gender, she (also) does so in a more general manner.
For this reason her concept of gender remains a general, unspecified term. To speak of gender in this
general manner means nothing else than that gender identity is something historical, constituted through
social or other processeshowever, it says nothing specific about whose gender it is. On the side of
Merleau-Ponty, if he speaks of sexuality in a general way, this does not per se indicate that sexuality is
unhistorical or independent from social processes or norms. Consequently, both theorists remain in a
sphere of generality, each of them in a specific way. And instead of criticizing their use of generality, we
should better reconsider this form of generalization, asking how we can philosophically benefit from such
a usage?

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that can be found in Merleau-Pontys phenomenology.14 And while Butler is much

more interested in how social norms influence gender constitution, Merleau-Ponty is
interested in the relation between sexuality and existence, an issue which seems to
be quite underdeveloped in Butler. Further, although Butler became known as a
theorist of the body, both with her first study Gender Trouble and in the following
study Bodies that Matter, Merleau-Ponty is much more concerned with the body in
his Phenomenology of Perception than Butler in her article Performative Acts and
Gender Constitution. The chapter, for example, which follows The Body in its
Sexual Being is at length dedicated to The Body as Expression, and Speech
(Merleau-Ponty 1962, pp. 174199) and thus provides us with a full analysis of how
exactly the body contributes to meaning production.
The chapter The Body in its Sexual Being opens with a detailed discussion of a
pathological case study that was first introduced by the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig
Binswanger in Amsterdam and Groningen in a paper he gave in 1934 (Binswanger
1994, pp. 205230). It summarizes the case of a young 24 year-old woman who goes
to Dr. Binswanger for psychotherapy after losing her ability to speak shortly after a
menstruation. As reconstructed during the psychotherapeutic treatment by Ludwig
Binswanger, the aphonia was in effect the result of the mothers prohibition to see the
young man she had loved. Merleau-Ponty summarizes this case as follows: A girl
whose mother has forbidden to see again the young man with whom she is in love,
cannot sleep, loses her appetite and finally the use of speech (Merleau-Ponty 1962,
p. 160). For him this case is exemplary for how sexuality comes into existence
through the body. But instead of reducing existence to sexuality, he is arguing that
the sexuality alone cant explain how the past experiences of the young woman were
fixated on her mouth by way of aphonia: what is fixated on the mouth is not
merely sexual existence, but, more generally, those relations with others having the
spoken word as their vehicle (ibid.). Exactly as for Binswanger, for Merleau-Ponty
the fixation is the result of a broader existential situation in which the woman or the
young girl takes part. In losing her speech, the young woman breaks with relational
life within the family circle, more generally, she tends to break with life itself
(ibid.). From the very beginning it seems as if sexuality is always closely linked to
the issue of co-existence and not separable from it.15 It is parental prohibition
(perhaps also a social norm?, both prominent vocabularies in Butlers gender
theory16) that has influenced the womans existence totally, forced her to withdraw
14

This might be due to the fact that the French language does not distinguish between sex and gender. In
both cases the word sexuality is to be used. For further specification the French say sexual identity
as a synonym for gender or gender identity. But although the difference between sex and gender doesnt
play a systematic role in Merleau-Ponty it must be added that sexuality in his phenomenology of the body
is indeed not restricted to its bodily function. He explicitly rejects the idea that sexuality is to be regarded
as a type of bodily function (cf. Merleau-Ponty 1962, p. 157). This is to say, that it is already more than
a mere bodily function. By way of its original intentionality (ibid.), sexuality in Merleau-Ponty exceeds
the meaning of a mere bodily function.

15

As I have shown elsewhere, Merleau-Ponty was always critical of pan-psychoanalytic approaches of

Freudianism (Stoller 1999). For this reason it seems only logical that he emphasizes the interrelatedness
of sexuality and co-existence.
16

What prohibition is concerned, refer to the chapter Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of
the Heterosexual Matrix in Gender Trouble (Butler 1990, pp. 3578).

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herself from her former life. Binswanger and Merleau-Ponty share the opinion that
the womans aphonia is the result of her resistance against her mother and the world
around her in general.
Two aspects are important here: First, his rejection of both a naturalistic and an
individualistic interpretation of this kind of psycho-somatic phenomenon (1).
Second, the bodys role with regard to the modification of existence (2). These two
aspects will lead us back to Merleau-Pontys concept of expression (3).
(1) Merleau-Ponty is arguing that the loss of voice is neither a voluntary act nor an
anatomical defect; it is neither will nor anatomy that effects the loss of voice. No
more can it be said that the loss of voice is voluntary (1962, p. 162). The young
woman did not willingly decide to lose her voice because even if she wanted to speak
she couldnt do so. Like the psychic processes of forgetting or also in the case of
sleep, Merleau-Ponty is arguing, the loss of voice has its origin in an anonymous
force, a force that is placed on a lower level than that of will (ibid., p. 163).
Sleep is not something that can be ordered, it simply comes: In a way, I become
what I was trying to be (ibid., p. 164). As we can easily follow, the womans loss of
voice has nothing to do with a simulation or with a deliberate refusal, for the same
reason mentioned: the woman could not speak even if she wanted to do so. Here the
girl does not cease to speak, she loses her voice as one loses a memory (ibid.,
p. 161). And losing ones memory doesnt happen by way of voluntary decision
losing ones memory is far from dependent on ones will. For the same reason, the
young woman does not demonstrate her annoyance or disappointment against her
mother in a conscious way. Merleau-Ponty writes: By losing her voice she does not
present a public version of an inner state, she does not make a gesture like that of
the head of a state shaking hands with the engine driver and embracing a peasant
(ibid., p. 161). The girl does not mime with her body a drama played out in her
consciousness (ibid.). So if the woman ever expresses or demonstrates
something through her symptom then she does so on a lower level, a level below
the level of consciousness or free will. Similarly, the loss of voice cant be explained
by way of medical or anatomical explanation, Merleau-Ponty argues, since the
physical body and the anatomical speech apparatus are totally intact as the medical
inspection has found out. Moreover, the fact that the woman gets her voice back after
her therapy must be conceived of as indicator for the independency of her aphonia
from any physical deficiency. Arguing this way, it becomes clear that Merleau-Ponty
rejects both a subject-centered approach and an object-centered approach.
(2) Now, if the loss of voice is independent from consciousness and materiality
then what is responsible for these kinds of existential transformations? Following
Merleau-Ponty, it is here that the lived body (the subject as bodily being) comes
into play: The bodys role is to ensure this metamorphosis (Merleau-Ponty 1962,
p. 164). To say that it is the body that can ensure metamorphoses, as in the case of
the young woman just discussed, is to say that the lived body takes over functions
we normally ascribe to subjective functions or to objective facts. The body can
symbolize existence because it realizes it and is its actuality (ibid.). This is a
remarkable claim because it suggests the lived body as a means for transformation.
Moreover, as the citation indicates, the body itself becomes a kind of speech or a
sort of language, insofar as it is able to symbolize existence. It is a sort of

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symbolization of existence. Finally, there is another reason why this claim is of

highest importance. It clearly illuminates Merleau-Pontys concept of expression.
To say that the body realizes existence by way of symbolization does not mean
that it ex-presses existence, it means that the body is responsible for the
realization of existenceit is the very place where existence comes into existence.
How the body expresses existence is of highest importance for our purpose of
bringing together Butler and Merleau-Ponty more closely. As Merleau-Ponty says:
But as we shall see the body does not constantly express the modalities of
existence in the way that stripes indicate rank, or a house-number a house: the sign
here does not only convey its significance, it is filled with it; it is, in a way, what it
signifies (ibid., p. 161, my emphasis). In French: le signe ici nindique pas
seulement sa signification, il est habite par elle, il est dune certaine manie`re ce quil
signifie (Merleau-Ponty 1945, p. 188). For a better understanding, Merleau-Ponty
refers to Sartres notion of quasi-portrait, introduced in his phenomenological
psychology of the imagination (Sartre 2004, Chap. Sign and Portrait, pp. 2124).
For Sartre, quasi-objects are objects in which the sign and its significance are
inseparable. For example, wax figures in a wax figure menagerie are such quasiobjects. As a visitor, I do not see a wax figure that wants to tell me, By the way,
Im Barack Obama; from the point of view of perception I identify the perceived
object as Barack Obama before I realize that this model is actually only made out
of wax. In this case, sign and signification coincide.
In arguing that the bodys expression is different from a certain kind of
signification, he supplements his phenomenology of the body with a theory of
language. But although the bodys expression has obviously something to do with
language, he insists that it represents a special kind of signification. His claim it is,
in a way, what it signifies becomes crucial for us. If the bodys expression is what
it signifies, then Merleau-Ponty is already re-conceptualizing the mere traditional
concept of signification. However, if the sign, in a way, is what it signifies then the
sign and the signification cant be separated. The relation between sign and
signification is no longer an external one. Consequently, if the relation between the
sign and the signification is no longer external, one must also admit that what is
expressed is no longer separated from the expression.
It becomes pretty clear now that Merleau-Pontys concept of expression differs
from the so-called philosophy of consciousness (Bewusstseinsphilosophie) as
well as from models of representation. In philosophies of consciousness, a word
simply represents an idea we have in mind before speaking (Frank 1984, p. 269).
With respect to language and models of signs, representation means that signs
represent elementary ideas of the human mind. Given this primary definition,
Merleau-Ponty corresponds with the so-called poststructuralist approaches along
with the linguistic turn and its underlying refusal of a model of representation in the
theory of language. As Manfred Frank has pointed out clearly, the rejection of the
theory of representation is one of the main aims of what he has called neostructuralism in his famous lectures What is Neo-structuralism? (ibid., p. 156).
Recognizing Merleau-Pontys transformation of the term expression, Butlers
interpretation of expression, that the expressed exists before its expression, becomes
wrong.

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3 Conclusion
As we have seen, Butler distinguishes between a concept of performativity and a
concept of expression. While she prefers performativity due to its anti-essentialist
approach, she rejects expressivity, accusing it of being essentialist: While the
performative approach claims that nothing pre-exists its performance, the approach
of expressivity claims that what is expressed pre-exists its expression. While the
performative is a key concept of Butlers own poststructuralist approach, Butler
identifies the concept of expression with phenomenological theories.
(1) My first criticism refers to the assumption that every theory of expression,
especially the phenomenological concept of expression, is based on the idea that
something else pre-exists its expression and thus is in danger of essentialism. This
assumption is definitely wrong. In phenomenology, we can find concepts that do
clearly resist such an understanding. Merleau-Pontys phenomenology is one of
these. Although he makes use of the concept of expression, he doesnt contend that
what is expressed in fact pre-exists its expression. Therefore, if Butler is claiming
that theories of expression are based on the idea that something else pre-exists its
expression, she wrongly universalizes philosophical concepts of expression. By this
sort of generalization she subsumes all theories of expression under one single
understanding. She simply ignores those theories that cant be identified by the
model of expression as she has constructed it.
(2) My second criticism is directed at Butlers use of the term expression. It
seems as if she understands the term expression in a mere literal sense which, in
the following, leads her to certain and as I believe misleading conclusions. Indeed,
the English or the French term expression or lexpression, like the German
term Ausdruck, indicates a more mechanic understanding of what is happening in
expressive acts. It assumes that something is pressed or squeezed out, like juice
from an orange, mustard from a mustard tube, or toothpaste from a toothpaste tube.
Everything is ready to be squeezed out: the juice, the mustard, the toothpaste, and
perhaps gender identity or any other essential being. Let me briefly mention another
example, an example taken from the beauty industry to be included in the gender
issue. At the time I was writing my paper, a new advertising billboard had been put
up just in front of my apartment house across the street, visible to me every time I
left the house or whenever I looked out of my window. The cosmetic production
company Dove, a leading global beauty brand manufactured by Unilever in North
America, is currently advertising their products as part of their world-wide
Campaign for Real Beauty which started in 2004. The poster shows a normal
woman, not really slim, and not really fat, so far an untypical model, and the
advertising text says in big letters: There is real beauty in every woman. Just let it
out! (my translation). Something is always already inside ourselves and simply in
need of being expressed or squeezed out like body lotion from the bottle. The
essential woman in the form of beauty is merely hidden inside a woman and in
need of being transported from the inside to the outside. What these examples show
is the more literal understanding of expression, each in danger of essentialism if
applied to gender. But as I would argue, the literal sense of the term expression is
not imperative. It is not the word expression that makes it unsuitable for our

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intellectual purposes but the use of it. It depends on the interpretation if a concept of
expression represents an essentialist concept or not. As I have shown, MerleauPonty resists such a literal understanding of expression. Just as the term
performance should not be mixed up with the theatrical sense of the
performative, as Butler emphasizes repeatedly, the term expression should not
be taken in the mere literal sense. To take expressivity in a more literal sense
would be as wrong as the more literal understanding of performativity, e.g.,
assuming that there is somebody who only performs something. Just as Butler
rejects the very assumption that somebody exists before the performative act,
Merleau-Ponty rejects the assumption that somebody exists before his or her
expressive acts.
I guess that Butlers critical attitude towards theories of expression is strongly
influenced by Foucaults aversion to expression throughout his work.17 However,
given that Foucault has influenced Butler also in this respect, it must not follow that
his criticism of the idea of expression, which also includes phenomenology, goes
without any contradiction. Rather, Foucaults criticism of expression, as others have
already shown, is very often superficial in character. Moreover, although the French
poststructuralist tradition since the 1970s of the last century is skeptical of theories
of expression, it is not so as a whole. Deleuze, for example, is such an exception.18
Although Deleuze was one the most prominent critics of phenomenology in his
time, he did not decide to abandon the concept of expression, rather he was
transforming it, as was Merleau-Ponty.19
(3) My third and even more important criticism refers in more detail to the
assumption that Merleau-Pontys phenomenological theory of expression is in
danger of essentialism. Again, essentialism in this context means, following Butlers
understanding, that something pre-exists its expression. What is supposed to preexist its expression must be identified as essentialist. I fully agree with Butlers
characterization of essentialism and I also agree with her claim that gender is not
something that exists before its realization, whether it be called performance or
expression or whatever. Indeed, essentialist gender theories fail to understand how
something like gender is constructed or constituted. They presuppose what they
actually should try to explain. However, I strictly reject the assumption that
17
See, for example, Archaeology of Knowledge, where he says that we must give up the idea that
discourses [= language] are a sort of expression. See also number 85 of his Dits et crits, volume 2,
where he critically reflects upon his early study on madness, saying that in these early times he was still
too much orientated toward the idea of expression (Foucault 1994).
18

See his study on Spinoza, Expression in Philosophy (Deleuze 1990). One of the most illuminating
passages is his paradox of expression in the same study: The paradox is that at once the expressed
does not exist outside of the expression and yet bears no resemblance to it, but is essentially related to
what expresses itself as distinct from the expression itself (ibid., p. 333). For a comparison between
Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty with respect to their challenge of transcendental phenomenology, see Lawlor
(2003).

19

In opposition to Lawlor, however, I do not believe that Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of Perception

does not free itself from subjectivity, and that only the late work The Visible and the Invisible might
challenge the more problematic (subjectivist) tendencies within phenomenology (Lawlor 2003, p. 93),
because identifying Phenomenology of Perception with subjectivism means to ignore the anti-subjectivist
tendencies Merleau-Ponty was defending in his study.

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Merleau-Pontys theory of expression can be identified with any sort of essentialism. As I have shown in part II on Merleau-Ponty, his theory of expression is
explicitly based itself on a critique of those theories of expression that claim that
something else pre-exists its expression, and thus is arguing against essentialist
approaches.
Paradoxically, this means that his theory of expression is exactly directed against
what Butler accuses him of.
Finally, if we want to summarize the previous criticisms and results, the
following conclusions can be drawn.
(1) First, it turns out that Merleau-Ponty and Butler share the same interest in a
critical concept of expression, supporting instead a concept in which meaning is not
said to be something prior to its expression but the result of it. But while Butler
rejects the concept of expression as a whole, Merleau-Ponty maintains the concept
of expression. He is not rejecting expression but redefining it. In any case, Butlers
rejection and Merleau-Pontys redefinition are motivated by the same theoretical
insufficiency. In recognizing their critical starting-point, it can be argued that
Butlers theory of performativity and Merleau-Pontys theory of expression share a
rejection of essentialist theories.
(2) Not only do Butler and Merleau-Ponty share the same critical understanding
of traditional theories of expression, but something else is even more obvious, and
thus becomes vital: They not only agree with the rejection of traditional theories of
expression, but they also come to similar conclusions. In fact, both philosophers
introduce similar concepts of meaning and meaning production. That is to say,
Butler and Merleau-Ponty agree with the idea that meaning comes into existence at
the same the time as it is produced. Their focus is on meaning in statu nascendi, a
Latin term that can be often found in Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of
Perception. Meaning is not a stable value but something continually constituted.
Thus, if Butler and Merleau-Ponty not only go hand in hand with their criticism of a
pre-existing meaning but also introduce similar alternatives to traditional theories of
expression, then the claim that the concept of performativity and the concept of
expressivity are contradictory approaches, is wrong. Rather, it turns out that Butler
and Merleau-Ponty are intellectual partners. They are more closely related to each
other than Butler wants us to believe. Also, with respect to what they argue against
and with respect to which alternatives they suggest, I believe that it doesnt really
matter if the one speaks of performativity and the other of expressivity. Given their
commonalities, the degree of correspondence, their differences seem to be less
important in some respects. It seems to me that the difference between Butler and
Merleau-Ponty merely lies in a different focus and not so much in a completely
different approach.
Surely, one can argue that there are differences between those two philosophers,
differences that should not be ignored. I do agree. I agree that they differ from each
other in some important respects. One of the most obvious differences is the fact
that Merleau-Ponty is not so concerned with discourses but more with the lived
body. In contrast to Merleau-Ponty, discourses are crucial in Butlers concept of
performativity. As she pointed out in an interview 1994: So what I am trying to do
is think about performativity as that aspect of discourse that has the capacity to

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produce what it names (Butler 1994, p. 33). But it wasnt my primary aim in this
paper once again to outline the differences between Butler and Merleau-Ponty. This
is what many researchers have already done and still dothe struggle between
poststructuralism and phenomenology is well-known. My primary aim was to
critically examine Butlers claim that performativity and expressivity, and therefore
poststructuralism and phenomenology, are contrary up to the point that they do not
correspond to each other. In arguing that Butler and Merleau-Ponty have a lot in
common, I was hoping to demonstrate that Merleau-Pontys phenomenology is
undoubtedly compatible with poststructural feminism.20

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Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
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The results of my past research on feminist phenomenology have recently been published (Stoller
2010).

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