Karl Bühler's Concept of Expression

The article deals with some central claims developed by Karl Bühler in his book, Ausdruckstheorie (1933). These claims are interesting as concerns the ongoing debates about the concept of expression, currently at work in the fields of psychology and language sciences. It is shown that Bühler renounces to define expression through the exclusive notion of what would be the revelation of an interiority. While asserting that « expression is a parabola for action », Bühler examines the refined and shaded description, by J.J. Engel, of theatrical performance in its very essence: thus is put into the light a specific feature of expression, the bodily orientations of actors towards present. The general claim is that Bühler « localizes» a certain kind of expressive phenomena within  bodily movements directed towards the world, as regards human beings and animals. In this way is sketched out the possibility for escaping psychologism (or anthropomorphism) which would be otherwise unavoidable in the development of a theory of action.