Niet het 'ik denk', maar de taal is primair

"It is not the thinking or the reflective I that withstands the test of universal doubt (Apel, 1981), it is time and the phrase. It does not result from the phrase, I doubt, that I am, merely that there has been a phrase. Another phrase (the one we just read: There has been a phrase) has linked onto the first one by presenting itself as what follows it. And a third one, the one we just read, / There has been a phrase / follows / I doubt /, has linked onto the first two by presenting their linkage in the form of a temporally ordered series (There has been. . . , follows .  . .)." (Lyotard 1988, The Differend, p. 59)

Lyotard: taking the meme's eye view

"If I genuinely believe that there is no 'I' inside, with free will and conscious deliberate choice, then how do I decide what to do? The answer is to have faith in the memetic view; to accept that the selection of genes and memes will determine the action and there is no need for an extra 'me' to get involved. To live honestly, I must just get out of the way and allow decisions to make themselves." (Blackmore 1999, The Meme Machine, p. 244)

"In writing this book, the A. [author] had the feeling that his sole addressee was the Is it happening? [Arrive-t-il?] It is to it that the phrases which happen call forth. And, of course. he will never know whether or not the phrases happen to arrive at their destination, and by hypothesis, he must not know it. He knows only that this ignorance is the ultimate resistance that the event can oppose to the accountable or countable [comptable] use of time." (Lyotard 1988, The Differend, p. xvi)