The fibre, the thread, and the weaving of life: Wittgenstein and Nancy on community

Although Wittgenstein is famously skeptical about the possibility of making substantial philosophical claims, he can be said to offer significant insights into the difference between inner and outer as well as the difference between self and other.1 He consistently reminds us that inner and outer are intimately connected instead of only causally related, as well as that the self—far from being a wholly independent entity—always already finds itself constituted by its relationships with others. In thus contesting the Cartesian view on subjectivity, however, Wittgenstein may appear to simply reduce the inner to the outer and the self to the other...